


Thrown For A Loop

by Experimental



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 2018 Winter Olympics, Brother-Sister Relationships, Developing Relationship, F/F, Friendship/Love, Gen, Ice Skating, It's Emil Style!, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Music, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-03-24 16:21:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13814931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Experimental/pseuds/Experimental
Summary: After Emil and Sara both medal in Pyeongchang, they break the news to Mickey that they're retiring from singles competition—and teaming up in pairs.Michele has never taken change well. And with Emil living and training alongside him in Italy, skating with his sister the way Michele always wanted to, change can be terrifying. Or the catalyst for something new to grow. Either way, it's a long road to Beijing and gold.





	1. February 2018: Pyeongchang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The core idea behind this fic is one I've been kicking around for a while, but I just had to lay down a first chapter while Pyeongchang is still somewhat fresh in everyone's mind. So, in the _Yuri!!! on Ice_ tradition, a few of the things that made it into this chapter were inspired by real 2018 Olympic athletes and events. May it please.

**Emil**

This was it. His third and last shot to put down a clean run and show the whole world what he could do. No pressure or anything.

Emil took a few deep breaths to center himself, and hit the play button on his earbuds. The first few bars of “Thunderstruck”'s epic guitar riff charged him up as he visualized his run down the pipe, just as it did when he warmed up to it on the ice. Lay it down just like you practiced, he told himself, and pushed off down the slope.

Then dropped down backwards into the half-pipe. Open with a big switch double . . .

“ _THUN-DER!_ ” the music boomed in his ears as snow and sky swirled around each other in his vision. He came down on his skis smooth, just like frosting a cake, and went up into his first 1080 just in time for another roll of “ _THUN-DER!_ ”

Huge air there. And he managed to get all four fingers on the ski. Now, this was where he skidded out on his first run—

But not this time! His legs felt sure under him, the weather couldn't be better, and with AC/DC pounding in his head, it felt like time had slowed down just for him. Like he hung suspended in space each time he caught air, weightless. Then that rush of pure adrenaline as gravity pulled him back down to earth.

He had to fight a little on the landing out of his alley-oop flatspin, but he stayed on his skis. Just one trick to go. He had the speed he needed to finish with a double-cork 1260 . . . Yes! Alright. Now, don't fall. . . .

He did it! Best run he had ever put down and it was on the world stage!

Emil slid to a halt by the monitors and couldn't get his skis off fast enough. He could hear the crowd roaring over his music, and knew Mickey and Sara had to be among them somewhere. Emil would have run to find them if someone didn't stop him first and tell him to wait for his score. He knew it was going to be big, but he didn't expect it to land him among the top three—

92.00! Personal best! And what was more, into bronze-medal position! But he probably wouldn't hold on to it. There were still five more skiers to go, and he expected to be bumped out long before the top two finished their final runs.

Two falls and a shaky adjusted landing later and—Emil couldn't believe it. He was going home with a medal. In a category he had entered for fun because he was already going to be here and, why not, the quadrennial only came around every four years. He hugged all of his fellow competitors he could find, not just the first- and second-place finishers, and a few of the official escorts who got in his path as well. Someone pushed a Czech flag into his hand, and he must have waved it (hopefully right-way up), but all he could think about right then was sharing this moment with Mickey and Sara, before he exploded from pure happiness. If he could just find them in the crowd. . . .

Sara found him first, screaming his name, sporting a painted-on goatee in Czech colors for good luck. Emil dropped his skis and practically his flag rushing over to her, and twirled her around in an overhead lift.

Michele didn't have long to gape in horror, because as soon as Emil put his sister safely back on her feet, he was grabbing Michele up in a bear hug and babbling into his shoulder “I fucking did it! I fucking did it!” Was it his imagination, or was Michele hugging him back even tighter?

His fist hit Emil square in the back. “Take your earbuds out, idiot.”

“Oh. Right.”

Turned out, someone from a news channel back home wanted to interview him.

And Emil had so much he wanted to express to his countrymen, he didn't really hear the reporter's question before he started talking. Breathlessly. About how good he was feeling going into the run, how he tried not to overthink it, just listen to what his body and the pipe were telling him and lay it down clean, how he'd never thought he actually had a chance to medal, he still could hardly believe it, but it meant everything to him to bring bronze home for his country, and hi to his folks and everyone back home for their love and encouragement and _gamsahamnida_ to the Korean people for being the most welcoming and inviting people, he just couldn't be more pleased, he loved the whole world right now.

“How would you say skiing half-pipe compares to figure skating?”

“Ahhh. . . .” Emil huffed as he thought it over, but it was hard to concentrate when he was still buzzing from the adrenaline. “I guess the biggest difference is that doing a quad jump is like trying to launch a rocket—while telling a story with it at the same time! This is more like trying to land that rocket. With style.”

“That's right, it's not just freestyle—it's Emil Style!”

Emil had to laugh. He'd said that once in front of cameras, facetiously, when he had to follow JJ at Worlds, and now it was a thing.

“And I see Michele and Sara Crispino are here cheering you on—Mickey and Sara, of course, being Italy's reigning national champions in men's and ladies' figure skating,” the reporter said for the benefit of her audience. “Mickey, what do you think of your fellow skater winning bronze in half-pipe?”

Michele bristled at being called that on live TV. It was a still a point of some contention with him that Sara's childhood nickname had stuck so well. Thanks in no small part to Emil's fans.

“He doesn't speak Czech,” Emil told the reporter when Michele failed to answer.

Who switched to English. “Are you proud of Emil for what he was able to accomplish here today?”

Michele crossed his arms over his chest. And here it comes, Emil thought. “I think he's an idiot, doing tricks like that when he has to skate in a few days. He could have fallen and broken something. Nearly gave me a heart attack just watching him.”

“He's proud of me,” Emil said in Czech, grinning from ear to ear. Then looped an arm around Michele's shoulders and pulled him close, kissing his cheek, because Michele deserved all the points for that answer. “He sounds just like my coach!”

The reporter had to re-ask the question Emil had added that last part over. “You've got five quads planned for your free skate and just two days to recover before the short program—are you concerned you might have spread yourself too thin at these games?” 

* * *

**Sara**

Emil might have spread himself a little thin. He only landed two of his quads in the free skate, turned one into a triple, under-rotated another, and fell on the fifth. But he claimed he never thought he had a shot at the podium anyway.

Unlike Michele, who was _just_ edged out of medal contention by Kenjirou Minami.

He was bitter about it for days. Kept kicking himself for not going for the 3 Lutz + 3 loop combination in his free skate.

Until Sara got her bronze. Then he couldn't talk about anything else. One would almost think he had won it himself.

So, seeing as he was in such a rare mood, Sara thought a nice steak dinner after her medal ceremony was probably the best time to break the news.

“Absolutely not! I forbid it!”

Or maybe not.

“We're not asking your _permission,_ Mickey,” Sara hissed back at him, hoping he'd catch the hint in it to keep his voice down.

“We just want to get your opinion,” Emil said. “The two of us have been talking it over for some time now, and we're not one-hundred-percent sure yet, but we both feel pretty positive that this is what we want to do—”

“We're like ninety-nine-percent sure,” Sara jumped back in before Michele could get his hopes up too much that he might actually have a chance to dissuade them. “And the least you can do is be supportive of our decision.”

“Did you two hit your heads or something? You really expect me to sign off on this?” Michele blurted out, leaning forward over the table, and seeming not to care what the restaurant's other guests thought of him. Granted, it might have been a bit naïve of Sara and Emil to think they could wine and dine him into easy submission, but did he have to make a scene about it?

“Fine. If you want my _opinion_ ,” Michele said, “my opinion is it's a terrible idea. And _you_ should have known what I was going to say, Emil! You didn't honestly think I'd be okay with you throwing my sister across the ice, did you? And those _lifts?_ What if you drop her on her head? Huh? What if you throw her too hard and she lands wrong and breaks a leg? You could kill her career! You could—”

He wouldn't say it, Sara noticed. He wouldn't say out loud that a bad fall could kill her. It wasn't likely, but they all knew the tiny possibility was there. Michele couldn't say it out loud, for fear doing so would make that possibility even a little bit larger.

“We know the risks,” Emil said in a smaller voice, exchanging a glance with Sara. “That's why right now we're taking it slow and practicing the big stuff with harnesses—”

“You're already practicing!” Michele threw his hands up in frustration. “Unbelievable!”

“Why?” Sara shot back. “Because we didn't _ask you_ first?”

“Don't you think I'd at least like to know? I don't want the first I hear of it to be a call from the emergency room! You're not going to have harnesses when it comes time to compete. Not to mention, you're asking my sister to give up a very successful career in singles for what could be a flop, for all you know, and when she's at the top of her game—”

“Do you think I haven't thought long and hard about that? _I_ was the one who first suggested it,” Sara said in Emil's defense. Why was he so intent on blaming Emil for all of this anyway? “Look. We all know the field in men's skating is too deep. Emil may have the quads—when he lands them—but he can't compete with the top guys in the world on the artistic level. Sorry, Emil.”

“No offense taken.” Emil shrugged. “It's true.”

“But if we team up as a pair, all eyes are going to be on me anyway, and Emil has the muscle and confidence to show me off. I've climbed about as high as I can in my discipline. Now I want to try something different before skating gets boring for me. Isn't that what life is all about? Trying new things and following your passion?”

“But you'll be starting from the bottom, all over again,” Michele said.

“We know that. We know we have our work cut out for us. If it doesn't work out, we can always go back to singles. But if we never give this a try and see what we could become together, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives.”

Sara knew what her brother would say to that. That they could come to regret it anyway—for any number of reasons. That in the meantime the dynamics would change in singles competition, that they'd never be able to claw their way back up to medal contention again, they'd only be left in the dust by younger skaters.

Sara knew something like that was coming, and she didn't want to hear it. “We're still going to be skating. It's not like Emil asked me to retire or marry him or anything.”

“But if Sara ever decided she wanted kids, you know I'd be happy to—”

“Not the time, Emil.” God, as if Michele wasn't horrified enough as it was. She wanted to bring him to the edge of capitulation, not shove him over it.

But it might have been too late for that, even without Emil's failed attempt to lighten the mood. “Why are you two doing this to me?” Michele whined. "Why now—why  _here_? These games were supposed to be special."

And Sara just couldn't take it anymore. “This isn't about you, Michele! Why can't you get that through your head! It's about me and Emil and what we want out of our careers, and you can either get onboard and be a part of it with us, or . . .”

Sara didn't know what “or” there could possibly be. Mickey not in her skating career? She wanted him to back off, not butt out completely.

“Or not,” Sara settled on. “It's your choice, 'cause we're doing this thing with or without you.”

She didn't actually think he'd choose the “or else” option. Turn his back on his best friend and his twin sister? Not likely. But the longer the silence stretched on between them, the more Sara began to wonder if she really knew Michele at all anymore.

“I can't deal with this right now.” His chair scraped against the floor with an audible groan as he stood up, hand trembling with barely-contained emotion as he ran it over his mouth. “I can't—”

Whatever he had been about to say, Michele thought better of it. Just put his napkin down beside his plate, turned around, and left. Emil started to rise to go after him.

Sara's hand on his arm stopped him. “He has to come to the right conclusion on his own.”

“But it's because of me,” Emil sighed. Though he didn't elaborate.

Maybe he was right. Maybe Emil had something to do with the way Michele had reacted. Or a lot to do with it. But nobody else was going to make her brother's mind up for him.

One thing she was sure of, if he didn't make it up by the time of the gala, he was _not_ going to like Emil's exhibition skate. 

* * *

**Mila**

“So~” Mila said when they met for coffee the next morning, “are you and Emil going to share your big news at the party tomorrow night?”

By party, she of course meant the one set to go down at the Japan House after the gala, which Minami had invited every figure skater still at the games to. For someone only in his second full year of senior-level competition, he'd made a lot of friends fast, not to mention charmed the pants off the international press and more than a few of the female judges (not that they'd ever admit it).

But by Sara's peeved sigh, Mila figured the big reveal was to be postponed. “Ah. Mickey didn't take it well.”

“No,” Sara grumbled, “he did not. He seems to think I'm cutting my illustrious career short and that Emil's going to drop me on my head.”

“Well, he does have a point there. Pairs is way more dangerous for women than singles.”

“But it's a matter of _trust_ , Mila! Emil and I know what we're getting ourselves into, and Mickey should know both of us well enough by now to just shut up and support us.”

The support part Mila could agree with her on. Michele shutting up, not so much. “That boy does not like change.”

“No,” Sara agreed, “he does not.”

Though Mila was sure there was more to it. She clearly didn't have the insight into Michele's reasons that Sara did, but it was obvious to anyone who spent even a little time around the Crispinos how jealously Michele guarded his sister. It couldn't have rubbed him the _right_ way that Sara wanted to start skating with a man who wasn't him. And for that man to be Emil, of all people . . .

“Did they ever . . . after Osaka . . .?” Mila tried to broach the subject, walking the fine line between tact and burning curiosity. “I mean, not that it's any of my business—”

“Nah, it's okay.” Sara sighed, again, and burrowed down into her coat. “I don't know what's going on there, to be honest. They've been fine these past few weeks, having fun together and just drinking it all in. Like nothing happened.”

“But that's just it. Something _did_ happen.” Unless Mila had misunderstood Sara's accounting of it. “Didn't it?”

Sara made a face. “I _think_ so. We haven't actually talked about it. There are some things you just can't ever unsee, and Mickey would never get over the embarrassment if he knew what I saw.”

Mila could understand the awkward position Sara was in, if she put herself in Sara's shoes. Walking in on your own brother passed out in bed with another guy, half-naked, was the sort of thing a person would sooner forget.

Thankfully, Michele wasn't Mila's brother, and the mental image wasn't nearly as unwelcome to her as the actual image must have been to Sara. Mila still kicked herself for not going to last November's NHK Trophy, as spectator and moral support, but the travel time would have cut into her own Grand Prix schedule. “So, you don't even know if they—”

“Mm-mm.” Sara shook her head.

Surely that explained some things. Between whatever had happened in Osaka, and Emil and Sara springing the news that they were joining up as a pair on him with no warning, Michele must have felt like his world was being upended.

“At least say you guys will come to the party,” Mila insisted. “I will personally pick Mickey up and carry him to it myself, if I have to. The last one, I got stuck listening to Chris brag about his Swiss bobsledder all night, and if I have to hear one more joke about giant red phallic symbols thundering down chutes—I'm serious!” she said when Sara laughed. “I won't be held accountable for my actions!”

“Poor Chris. He _was_ with Victor last quadrennial, so if you think about it, that sort of made him defending champion coming into the games.”

How had Mila missed that juicy drama? “Wait, what? I thought I heard he was banging some biathlete at Sochi.”

“Yeah, that would be Victor.” Sara rolled her eyes at their colleagues' terrible pun. “They had to keep things quiet so Victor wouldn't get daily lectures from Yakov about sleeping with the enemy.”

Yep, that sounded like her coach, alright. “Well, it didn't seem to affect their performances any.”

 _Nor ours,_ Mila hoped Sara could hear implied in her tone. They had done pretty well for themselves this time around, all things considered. She might have even said that dating the competition made her and Sara want to try even harder to surpass each other and their own past accomplishments. But Mila would be the first to admit she was a bit biased.

And speaking of their accomplishments: “Hey, do you think it's true what they say about bronze medalists?” Mila asked, leaning her chin on her hand over the table. “About them being happier than gold and silver medalists? I mean, you look at Minami-kun and you'd think he got crowned King of the Winter Games or something.”

“What?” Sara shot her a wry grin. “Not happy with your silver?”

“It's not that. . . .” OK, maybe Mila had nothing to feel sorry for herself for, when her girlfriend sitting right across from her had scored a bronze. Just. . . .

Mila took it out of her coat pocket with a sigh. “Just that every time I look at this thing, I can't believe I got beat by some snot-nosed sixteen-year-old. This was supposed to be my year~ Hey!”

Sara had just snatched the silver medal out of her hand and was examining it under the spotty cafe lighting. “I'll trade with you if that would make you feel better.” She took her own medal out of her pocket and slid it across the table, and it shouldn't have surprised Mila that Sara was carrying hers around too.

“I was only joking!”

“Nope, too bad. You wanted to be happier, so enjoy bronze!”

Mila didn't get to use her comeback, however, as a passing fan noticed the medals and asked for a selfie with the two skaters. So at least Sara could pretend for one random stranger's post that she'd finished in second.

* * *

Sara had to hand it to Minami. Convincing Otabek to DJ his after-party was proof of his excellent taste and sportsmanship. The fact that Minami could get up on stage with him to belt out karaoke to some anime's theme song, and have everyone enthusiastically cheering him along, was testament to his true star quality. Yuuri would have to watch his back around this one, if he wasn't already.

Minami was maybe two lines into the first verse when Emil shouted “THIS IS MY JAM! Guard my beer, Sara,” and jumped up to join him for the chorus, singing along in perfect Japanese. It didn't come as any surprise to her, either, that a guy who excelled in wildly different sports would have a broad appreciation of music. Narrowing down a theme for their debut season wasn't going to be simple.

“I believe congratulations are in order.”

Sara smiled at that smooth voice in her ear. Christophe could read the McDonalds menu to her and it would still be the sexiest thing she ever heard. She spun and leaned into his embrace, hoping that Michele was watching, from whatever dark corner he was drinking alone in. She still hadn't forgiven him for his outburst at the restaurant, and Christophe was one person who never failed to rouse Mickey's jealousy.

As for Sara, she could never feel down for long with Christophe's arms around her, rocking her slightly. Though his hug seemed a little sadder than usual. Maybe because he would be leaving these games medal-less. Maybe because there was only one day left until they were officially closed. Two weeks had never lasted so long, nor flown by so fast.

“Speaking of congratulations,” she mumbled against his chest, “where's this amazing bobsledder I've been hearing so much about?”

“With his wife.”

Damn. That was some bad luck. “Sorry. What a dick.”

But Christophe laughed as he released her. “It was information I could have used two weeks ago. Wasn't like it was ever serious, though. You and your new man on the other hand. . . .” He nodded toward the stage, question mark unspoken.

 _My new man, huh?_ Funny, she still had trouble seeing Emil that way. It wasn't like they had ever been attracted to one another, even before Osaka. But she didn't see him like another brother, either. She couldn't, not if she was going to skate with him the way she wanted to. What he was to her exactly, and she to him, professionally more than personally, she wasn't sure yet. She just hoped audiences would be able to believe in their on-ice romance, if that was what she and Emil chose to sell them, never mind the judges.

They had certainly sold _something_ during Emil's exhibition skate to “Thunderstruck” tonight, which Sara had surprised the crowd (and Michele most of all) by joining him in halfway through. Though the few lifts and spins they performed were pretty basic, their energy together had been electric enough for social media to catch fire with speculation. Was this a one-off, exclusively for the Games? A preview of something to come? Or just a testing of the waters?

“Nothing's official yet,” Sara told Christophe, though she was sure he knew her well enough to read between the lines she fed him. “We won't tell the press until we decide for sure which country we want to represent.”

And once Michele had a chance to come around to the idea. _If_ he ever came around to it.

“Well, when you do decide, there's going to be a lot of young girls out there mourning the loss of their idol.”

Mourning? Give me a break, Sara thought. “It's not like I'm retiring from skating altogether. Emil and I are going to do things together that we would never be able to alone. We could show the world something they've never seen before. Sure, there might be some disappointed fans at first, but they'll come around once they see what we've got to offer.”

She wasn't expecting that to get the sarcastic grin it got. “I'm sure _they_ will.”

“If you think it's a bad idea,” Sara rounded on him, “why don't you just say it.”

Prompting Christophe to put his hands up in surrender. Sara could be scarier than even her brother when she wanted to be.

“I don't,” he said. “If you want the truth, I think it's brilliant. I just don't want you two to fizzle out before the next quadrennial. You got me primed with that exhibition skate, now I _have_ to see Crispino and Nekola take gold in Beijing. Even if it's for Trinidad and Tobago.”

That was Sara's dream too (maybe not the Trinidad and Tobago part). But it felt like saying so was the surest way to jinx her and Emil's chances. “You really think you have another four years in you, Chris?”

“Oh, I'll be in Beijing,” he swore, raising his Sapporo to his lips. “Even if I have to coach some snot to get me there.”

That would be something to see. Right now, Sara couldn't imagine Christophe yielding the spotlight to a younger skater, even as a coach. But he could surprise her. Victor settling down had mellowed him. Even if Christophe didn't like to say it out loud, they both knew he didn't have too many years of competition left in him.

By the time the next quadrennial rolled around, Sara would be the same age Christophe was now. Practically over-the-hill for a singles skater. Emil would be twenty-three; if pairs didn't pan out for him by then, he could potentially return to men's singles. Perhaps with the stamina and artistic maturity he needed to contend at the top level.

Was she being too selfish, asking him to give up four years of his life for this experiment? Or unrealistic, treating this like it was a new beginning rather than her last shot?

The only thing she was sure of right then was that she needed another beer. And maybe one of Christophe's famous shoulder rubs to go with it.

* * *

**Michele**

Their hug at the airport was awkward. Michele had never been much of a hugger to begin with, but what he would never admit aloud was that he liked the ones Emil gave him. The genuine warmth in them. None more so than the one Emil had given him last November, before they left Osaka. Like the whole world had changed overnight and they were the only two who knew it. Like if Emil had his way, he would never let Michele go again.

This one felt wrong. Too quick. Too unsure. Too much left unsaid.

And seeing as it was Michele's place to say it, and he still didn't know what words he was supposed to use to do so, the silence just sat like a weight on both of them, oppressive.

The embrace Emil and Sara shared looked much warmer. “I'll text you when we get in,” Sara said, stretched on tip-toes. “Maybe tomorrow we can video-chat about scheduling? After we both get some rest, of course.”

Emil glanced over at Michele, as if to ask if it was really alright for them to be talking about this so soon.

So Michele walked away. Let them talk. It wasn't like anything he said would change their minds anyway.

On the plane, as they waited for everyone to finish finding their seats, he scrolled through his social media accounts. Emil had become something of a media darling, first with his surprise medal in freestyle skiing, then with that surprise sort-of-pairs skate at the gala with Sara. Michele was just sorry he didn't know enough Czech to understand what most of the posts about him were saying.

Then he got hung up on a photo Mila had taken of the three of them after the ladies' medal ceremony. Emil and Sara with blue and pink ribbons around their necks, holding up their respective bronze medals. Michele with an arm around each of them (that didn't make it into the picture), barely holding it together (that did). Awesome. His biggest take-away moment from Pyeongchang, the one the Internet was going to remember him for, and he was sporting primo bitch-face. Not looking like the proud big brother he had actually been inside.

Maybe that was fitting. Because after the way he had acted less than an hour after that photo was taken, after Sara and Emil had told him their news—maybe he deserved to look to all the world like an asshole.

Because there was a part of him that saw that picture and could imagine those medals weren't for half-pipe ski and ladies' singles, but for pairs. And that they weren't bronze, but gold. And that he wasn't the guy who just missed his chance to make it a trifecta, but their—

No, he couldn't start thinking that way. He had his own skating to worry about, and he still wasn't convinced this pairs idea was a good one.

“How long have you been staring at that picture?”

Michele jumped and guiltily snapped his phone's screen off. Slumped down in his seat rather than face Sara's knowing grin. “None of your business.”

“Fine,” she said. “If you don't want to apologize, I won't make you. But the least you can do is admit you're jealous.”

“ _Jealous?_ ” Where was this coming from, all of a sudden?

Then Michele gave it some thought. Was that what was upsetting him? It would make some sense. He couldn't deny that he felt like he was leaving Pyeongchang empty-handed, after all his hard work and success this season. “Alright, so maybe I was hoping I'd have something shiny to take home, too.”

Sara blinked at him. “I wasn't talking about medals. Do you really mean to tell me that it's not bothering you just a little that I'm going to be skating with Emil and not you?”

“Of course it bothers me.” And there it was, the deepest, dearest secret in his soul, and Sara just ripped the cover off of it like it was nothing. “I always wanted to skate with you, Sara. From the very beginning, the times I've been happiest on the ice are the times we skated together. But you made it very clear to me that you didn't want us to compete as a team.”

Michele's heart hammered, his surroundings thrown into painfully-sharp focus as he felt the fight-or-flight instinct kicking in. What was Sara going to think of him, now that she knew this was how he had always felt? That he was some sort of perv? Or just pathetic?

But now that he'd said that much, he couldn't stay silent on the matter anymore. She was asking for it, a petulant little voice inside him said. If she didn't like what she heard, tough. She'd brought him to this, cleaving to Emil when she must have known all along what Michele wanted. How could she not?

“You said it would be weird,” he said, trying hard to keep his voice low, “and I convinced myself you were right, that we didn't need people talking about us even more than they already did. I tried as hard as I could to kill that dream, for your sake. And what do you do but throw it back in my face. With Emil, of all people. So, yeah. I guess you could say I'm a little jealous.”

His eyes burned, but he was not going to get emotional on a plane full of people, he told himself. There was nowhere to run if he did.

The way Sara was staring at him, there must have been something in what he had said that she wasn't expecting.

Which surprised Michele. Wasn't that the confession she had been waiting for him to make?

To her credit, she didn't try to deny it or qualify it away. She loved him enough to accept that was how he really felt. Even if she thought he was being petty. “Is that something you're going to be able to get past?” she said after a little while.

Michele frowned. “I don't know. But I'm willing to try.” At least she'd be skating with Emil, he told himself, and not someone whose intentions he couldn't trust. “If you two are really set on doing this, I'd rather be onboard than stand in your way.”

Oh God, Sara's eyes were getting teary. If there was one thing that could send Michele over the edge . . .

“D-don't get all misty on me,” he cleared his throat, turning away, as it was the only way he could keep his own face straight. “I still think it's dangerous. So sue me. I'm still your big brother. I don't want to see you get hurt.”

Never mind that every time Michele replaced himself in his dream with Emil, his own heart broke a little more.

 


	2. March 2018: Milan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone interested enough in listening along, or just discovering some skateable tunes, I've posted links in the endnotes for the music referenced in this chapter's programs. Obviously, none of it belongs to me.

If she listened to the media or some of her fellow skaters, Sara might have expected to be worn out by the time this year's World Championships came along.

But somehow the opposite had occurred. Maybe it was the pressure of the quadrennial being behind her, or that she was back competing in the city she trained in, making this practically her home ice. Or maybe it was just knowing she would probably never skate this program again, at least not with a title to be won or lost at the end of it. Knowing this might well be the last time she competed on the world stage as a singles skater.

Whatever the reason, all the restlessness and self-doubt that had plagued Sara in the Grand Prix run felt like it had been lifted. She felt lighter on her skates than she had all season. Like this wasn't the goodbye she'd been dreading it as. It was the final line of a chapter, yes, but the book was far from finished.

Her third-place standing after a clean short program stood as testament to that. Though, to be fair, the overwhelming support of the Italian crowd had carried her through it like a wind at her back, so that two and a half minutes seemed to pass as though it were mere moments.

Their cheers after every element she landed fueled her now as well, even through the darkness of the music Sara had chosen all the way back in June, when her path forward was less certain. Akina Nakamori's “Nanpasen.” Shipwreck. The theme of an idol who, at the height of her success, was floundering behind closed eyes.

Sara had wanted to do something in Japanese since learning the Grand Prix Finals would be in Nagoya, already planning before the season had truly begun to make it into the top six. Finding out she'd been placed in the NHK Trophy as well further cemented the choice for her. And Mickey gave it his stamp of approval after the first hearing. It was more his type of song than hers: dark, depressing lyrics and sweeping, melodramatic violin sequences. 

But “Nanpasen” had fit Sara's mood in Osaka to a tee. At the time, she had felt like a wreck—maybe not dashed and broken upon the rocks, like the song's lyrics and the tattered black tulle skirts and fishnet opera gloves of her Grand Prix costume implied, but stuck nonetheless. Beached. Run aground.

For once she hadn't felt like she could share that with Michele or Mila. Not since telling Michele they had to live their own lives, skate for themselves. He seemed to be having no trouble doing just that this year, with his light, melancholy, and so _not_ about his sister choice of “Kissing A Fool” for his long program. Somehow he had found his footing without her, and Sara was the one left suddenly without direction. And Mila. . . .

They were rivals still. No matter how dearly Sara loved Mila off the ice, she couldn't change that. Old habits die hard, and there were some nights Sara was glad there were a thousand kilometers between them. Some things she dared not let Mila in on for fear of pushing her even farther away.

Never again, Sara told herself going into this final free skate of the season. With a sleek new costume, and a new mood. A new way forward. This was the last time she would see Mila as someone to beat. The last time she would lie to her brother when things weren't OK. But she didn't skate this program for Mila or Mickey, nor even for Emil—though he had surely helped her push through when she needed it most, when she'd felt herself dragging and resenting the song she had chosen, only a few months into the season.

No, this was her love letter to her fans, and to her countrymen, for all they had given her. And it was something she had to do for herself. Prove to herself.

“ _Even if I'm laughed at as a fool,_ ” Nakamori sang, _“I want to chase you and hold on to you/ I want to surrender myself to the whirlwind/ And sink you in the ocean._ ”

But no matter what the lyrics said, the swell of the interlude buoyed Sara up, powering her through the next two jumping passes, beginning with a massive 2 axel + 3 toe loop + 2 loop combination. There wasn't going to be any surrender. Her thighs were beginning to burn with fatigue, but she pushed any thought of slowing down or cutting corners out of her mind.

Even as the music carried her into her final spin sequence, Sara wanted to fight. More than ever, she wanted to fight. She wouldn't give the people who loved her, who believed in her, any reason to turn away. If she had any regret at all it was that she hadn't chosen more uplifting music to send that message along with.

It was received nonetheless. Before her song could even draw to a close, the audience was on its feet, their cheers drowning out the final bars and making it near impossible for Sara to hit and hold her ending pose.

The tears sprang forth immediately, in direct proportion, it seemed to her, to the thrown flowers cascading onto the ice and Italian flags unfurling in the stands. She didn't know how she didn't burst from the love and gratitude she felt inside. Though it relieved the pressure a little bit to laugh, when she managed to pick out Mickey and Emil's voices, shouting “SARA! BRAVISSIMA!” in unison over everyone else.

Somehow she made it to the boards and to her coach and over to the kiss and cry, with its backdrop of the Duomo lit up like a castle of ice. Waiting longer than usual for her score was torture. The crowd held its breath until all she could hear was her blood pounding in her ears. But Sara thought she knew what to expect. Another bronze medal. Maybe silver if the judges had been kind on their GOEs.

Then the crowd erupted. Another second before she could see what they saw, but still she didn't believe her eyes. Sara had expected a season's best. But it felt like someone was pranking her. Was _that_ really her combined score?

Her coach laughed out loud when he saw the incredulousness on her face. But when he pulled her in for a hug, she could hear the waver in his voice through his congratulations.

It was all Mila could do not to run and jump on Sara while she was still in the kiss and cry. But she was right there waiting as soon as Sara and her coach got up, still made up for her own skate, radiant in her eye glitter and cherry-ice smile.

“ _Did I really just win Worlds?!_ ” Sara yelled to her over the roar of the crowd, not sure whether she was going to burst out laughing or crying, before she was swept up in Mila's arms.

“I always knew you could do it,” Mila whispered into her hair as she hugged Sara tight. “I've never been happier to come in second.”

Sara didn't want to let her go. She felt like she had battled as much for Mila's embrace as she had for gold this season. They'd spent far more time apart than they had together, even when they were in the same city. But the crowd _was_ chanting her name, and she owed it to them to wave back.

When Sara pulled away, there were tears in the corners of Mila's eyes. But it was the pride in them, staring back at her, that Sara refused to tear herself away from. She found Mila's hand and squeezed it hard in hers, raising it high in the air. In victory and love, so strong it was hard to bear.

* * *

“Come on, Vitya,” Mila teased, “put some muscle into it. We're all dying of thirst over here!”

“Just one . . . sec . . .” Victor grunted. “Jesus, it's really in there tight—”

“That's what he said,” Christophe quipped, prompting a chorus of eye-rolling groans and reluctant chuckles, and prompting Yuuri to turn bright red.

He grabbed the bottle of Prosecco out of Victor's hands, braced it between his knees, and pulled the cork out in one yank with an earsplitting pop.

“Over the sink!” Sara and Michele warned him simultaneously from opposite sides of the room as the bottle started to froth over. It was their apartment, after all, and neither one wanted to kick off their post-season vacation scrubbing sticky wine spots out of the floors.

It was just a small, impromptu party. The real celebration would come tomorrow, after the exhibition gala. But since Sara and Michele lived in town, a few of their closest friends, old and new, had invited themselves over for a more intimate get-together. Though Mickey kept threatening to throw everyone out early, so they could rest up for their final skate.

“Don't worry, we'll watch your intake for you,” Christophe assured him with a wink, as he grabbed two glasses from Yuuri. “We wouldn't want a repeat of Osaka on our hands. Or would we?”

The last question seemed to be directed more at Emil. Though Michele insisted back, “I'm sure I don't know _what_ you're talking about,” with the straightest face he could muster, just a bit pink around the edges. Emil cleared his throat and looked elsewhere.

Said Victor, in that way of his that was flirtatious but also vaguely threatening, handing Michele a glass, “You put away almost as much as Yuuri that night—which, considering you stayed on your feet, is really saying something about your tolerance.”

“Another thing you two have in common,” Georgi pointed out from his chair beside the girls.

Like a dog at a bell, Yuuri and Michele exchanged glances. “I am _not_ like him,” both said at the same time. “Not everything's a competition, Victor,” Yuuri muttered, while Michele assured Emil, “I don't indulge like that _all_ the time.”

Their exchange got a good laugh out of Sara. Mila's whole body vibrated with it, down from where Sara's legs lay draped across her lap.

Though it turned into a squirm when Christophe stopped beside them and bent at the waist, proffering a glass of Prosecco to each with a swoon-worthy “Ladies.”

A year ago, that squirm might have been enough to incite Mila's jealousy, but if she was envious of anything now it was that Sara's friendship with Christophe predated her. Nor was it just Chris. Sara had a more relaxed way about her around men, despite (or maybe because of) Mickey's bulldog-ishness. It hadn't been easy for Mila to work her way under Sara's defenses, and she was very much aware that their mutual friends had helped her case.

Still, Mila treasured what she and Sara did have, the rivals-and-lovers vibe they had cultured over last summer that had fueled her through the competitive season. The mutual encouragement and open feedback on one another's programs over video chat—and the secret planning off-line as to how each was going to one-up the other. It had kept them at the top of their game all season. Their medal count was proof of that.

Mila was just getting comfortable with that dynamic, Sara's win over her today further icing on the cake. She wasn't ready for it to change just yet.

“If this is the gold-medal treatment, I think I can get used to it,” Sara remarked, striking her most spoiled, royal pose on the couch, with Prosecco in hand. “Having gorgeous men wait on me, hand and foot—I don't even have to get up.”

“You earned a break,” Michele said. To which Yuuri added, “You both did.”

“Says the new Men's World Champion,” Victor purred, leaning into him.

“A toast,” Georgi said when Christophe handed him a glass, “to Sara and Yuuri on their victories. And to Mila and Victor, for at least bringing two silvers back to the motherland. Would that we could all know the sublime satisfaction you must be feeling right now just once in our lives.”

“Hear, hear!” said Emil.

“Well, we have. Haven't we?” Christophe said to Georgi with a little pout, as he perched himself on the arm of the other's chair. “Even if the days of medalling at Worlds might be behind us.”

“I keep telling you, Georgi,” Victor said, “you should get into the coaching game! You don't really know what winning _is_ until you lead somebody else to victory.”

“Are you and Emil still planning to team up, Sara?” Yuuri asked the question that had been burning on Mila's tongue all evening, blinking behind his specs. “I mean, you did just win gold. At Worlds. Are you sure you don't want to try for a repeat next year?”

“That's just it, though,” said Sara. “Now's the perfect time to try something new, now that I've gone as high as I can go. By myself, anyway.”

“Lucky for you,” Emil said, “I can throw you a helluva lot higher than you'd ever be able to jump on your own. She might not look it,” he said to the others, “but Sara's _almost_ as big an adrenaline junkie as _I_ am.”

From her spot on the couch, Sara raised her glass and bowed her head as if to say, You caught me. Guilty as charged. “That wasn't what I meant, Emil,” she teased him, even though he'd known perfectly well what she meant, “but it's true. Just another reason why we make such a good team.”

“Does this mean you're okay with their decision, Mickey?” said Mila.

Alright, so it wasn't the nicest thing for her to do, putting him on the spot in front of his peers when he'd only had a month to get used to the idea. And after how he'd taken the news when Sara and Emil broke it to him . . .

Maybe Mila was looking to him for some sort of confirmation herself, she realized. She must have been training with Victor too long, because if Mila had her way, she'd want to stay on top and amass as many medals as was physically possible. She could tell Sara that she understood her reasons for switching disciplines, but the truth was Mila couldn't.

Maybe she was looking for a kindred spirit in Michele. She knew Mickey had doubts about this pairs thing too. But she didn't know if it was just his protective instincts wanting to steer Sara away from the danger of bodily harm, or if he was going to miss competing against Emil the way Mila was already missing Sara. Were she and Michele in for a rough year, the way Christophe had been when Victor's absence stole his motivation?

Just thinking about that made Mila want to tighten her grip on Sara's ankle, as if that physical hold might somehow be enough to make Sara abandon this pairs idea and stay in singles. Feeling eyes on her, she glanced up and saw Victor staring back. Not at her face, but at her hand on Sara's leg.

Mila just as quickly looked away, and loosened her grip. But in that moment, it seemed to her as though Victor had seen down into her soul—past the smile she kept in place, past the post-win buzz. She should have known that if there was anyone she couldn't hide her fears from, it was Victor.

Meanwhile, Michele glanced around the room, no doubt feeling the pressure of all his colleagues waiting to hear his answer. “Well, it isn't up to me. This is what Sara and Emil want, and I have to trust that they know their own hearts a lot better than I do.”

Sara blinked, apparently not expecting something so mature to come out of her brother's mouth. “Thank you, Mickey.”

For his part, Emil just clapped Michele on his far shoulder in gratitude, and then used the leverage to pull him in to a one-armed hug. No words were needed to say what he wanted to say. Whatever may or may not have happened between the two of them this year, Mila noticed, they had grown as comfortable with one another as brothers-in-arms.

Even if Michele did have to get in as a coda, “Besides, Emil knows what I'll do to him if he ever hurts my baby sister.”

Emil's sip of Prosecco nearly came back up out his nose at that. “Yeah. I do.”

“Well,” Yuuri said to Sara and Emil, “you two have guts. I don't think the officials would ever let me and Victor compete as a pair, and I can't imagine skating with anyone else.”

“The world isn't ready to measure itself against our love,” Victor said with a melancholic sigh.

“Actually, Victor, I think the issue is that we'd have an unfair technical advantage over a male-female pair—”

“Mmm, I like my explanation better.”

“I, too, applaud you,” Georgi said, raising his glass in Sara's direction, then Emil's. “Both of you. But Sara especially. That's the way I always thought I'd like to go out. Quit while you're on top, on your own terms, no unfinished business. Like Victor did. When he left to coach, I thought he'd finally given me the chance to do the same. But then he came _back—_ ”

“Right?” Christophe agreed, draping himself over the back of Georgi's chair, as if to conspire with him against their old rival. “How does he still land himself on the podium after taking a year off _and_ adopting a katsudon-based diet?”

The way Victor seemed to sparkle as he flipped his hair and winked at them answered all. “Like I've told you two before, you can't explain witchcraft.”

Which earned _him_ a hearty round of boos and groans to shut up this time, as well as a chucked decorative pillow or two.

* * *

Gala night, and the audience applauded as soon as they heard the unmistakable guitar hook of “Thunderstruck” start up. The ice was dark, the spotlights swooping over the empty rink, but they knew what they were in for by now.

Emil liked to wait until the first booming “ _THUN-DER”_ of the song to make his appearance, using those opening bars to drum up screams from the crowd and get them clapping along in time. Pumping his fist in the air with each of the first few repetitions and receiving " _THUN-DER!_ " back from the audience in spades.

Michele would have been lying if he said he didn't envy how easily Emil enchanted them, all while gaining speed over the ice as if to catch up with that insane guitar riff. Even if he did look a bit ridiculous, this tall, grown man with a scruffy beard, wearing plaid capri pants and what looked like a private school blazer over a ČEZ Motor t-shirt.

Emil owned his eclectic style, however, hamming it up through the first verse. “ _Sound of the drums,_ ” Brian Johnson sang, and Emil punctuated it with a seemingly effortless quad salchow that Michele felt _“Beating in my heart/ The thunder of guns_ / _Tore me apart/ You've been . . ._ ”

Emil pointed into the darkened stands while in a spread-eagle, then launched right up into a triple axel that left the whole rink “ _Thunderstruck!_ ”

Thank God Michele had already finished his skate because he would hate to have to follow this one. It was even better than in Pyeongchang. And this time Michele was at least ready for Sara to make her appearance in it.

It was already a month ago that he had been watching, mesmerized, when he heard Sara say beside him in the dark: “He's a machine, isn't he? The height and distance he can cover with those jumps?”

“If only he skated this cleanly in competition, he'd have a lot more medals to take home with—” Michele happened to glance over at her then—and was thankful they were in darkness, because he thought he might die of shame if the audience saw his sister like that. “The hell—What are you wearing? That's not your exhibition costume!”

Sara just edged by him toward the gate, with an innocent “ _Permesso_ , don't want to miss my cue~”

“Your _cue?!_  Wait—Sara—”

But professionalism won out even over shame and Michele had let her go, even if he had wanted to throw a sweater over his little sister. A very long, bulky sweater.

Sara posed against the boards in darkness, in her skin-tight, faux-ripped leggings and leopard-print crop top, hip thrust out and a come-hither look in her smoky eyes. Emil skated around to her side of the rink, the spotlight engulfing them both as he slid to a stop beside her. The hometown crowd, needless to say, went wild.

Even having seen it once before, Michele had to bury his face in his hand when Sara whipped her top ponytail and flexed to “ _We met some girls/ Some dancers who gave a good time~_ ” He only hoped their grandmother back home wasn't watching her precious Sara dancing like a stripper on television. Or, if she was, that the suggestive English lyrics were too difficult to understand.

By the time he looked up again, Sara had taken Emil's hand, the two of them building up speed as they circled the rink. Michele knew what was coming when Emil gripped Sara's waist, and could only pray that they had put in enough hours of practice not to mess this up horribly. Emil lifted Sara straight up in a double twist—but, more importantly, caught her again without mishap—and Michele could agree with the music that yeah, yeah, the two of them just blew his mind. _He_ was shaking at the knees just watching that maneuver!

They cantilevered into a spiral, Sara riding Emil's skates and bent outward like a bow, extending a hand toward the roaring crowd. It looked so simple, so effortless. But if Michele looked closely, he could see the tension in Emil's arms and core, keeping the two of them steady. All eyes were surely on Sara and her saucy grin, her devilish curl of a finger; but her blades resting on top of Emil's skates couldn't have been comfortable. Michele was tensed for some sort of stumble, some sort of disaster.

But none came this time either. They separated, skating side-by-side in a diagonal pass, copying one another's footwork and arm movements in practiced unison. And Michele couldn't miss the huge smiles on their faces each time they locked eyes.

It was clear to him then, beyond any shadow of a doubt. They enjoyed this. In fact, it was the most fun Sara seemed to be having on the ice all season.

And they were good at it. Not to the point yet where they stood a chance against any of the established pairs competing here in Milan, but the potential was there. An energy between the two of them that Michele hadn't seen when they skated alone. The way they watched one another, communicated without words—the positions they were able to hold that would have been impossible for a single skater. The trust. Most importantly, the trust.

Maybe they were right.

God, it pained him just to admit that to himself. But the crowd loved them, and they were having the kind of fun that one _should_ have on the ice, whether it was in an exhibition or competitive skate. It wouldn't be right for Michele to try and kill this before it even had a chance to reach its potential, out of fear or protective instincts or jealousy. Surely he felt all three, like a trident jammed under the ribs.

But this wasn't about him. Sara was always quick to remind him of that. And this skate surely provided the proof. Michele had no right to try and take this away from the world, away from Emil and Sara, when it had never been his to begin with.

As if to convince him further, the song wound down to refrains of “ _It's alright/ We're doing fine”_ just as Emil hoisted Sara up over his head for a final hand-to-hand lift, and Michele caught himself nodding along. Whether because he agreed with the sentiment or—God forbid—was actually getting into this music, he couldn't say. But he wanted to believe that it was true. That they were going to be alright.

Then it was decided. He wasn't going to stand in their way.

But if they thought that meant he was going to let the two of them do whatever they wanted, without any input from him, they were mistaken.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sara's free skate music: [難破船 (Nanpasen)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnt6h8IJQGo) performed by Nakamori Akina (Kato Tokiko. 1987.) The lyrics referenced in the chapter are translated from the Japanese.
> 
> Emil's exhibition skate music: [Thunderstruck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM) performed by AC/DC (Angus Young, Malcolm Young. 1990.) Hungary's Ivett Toth actually used this in her short program medley in the 2017/18 season, for which she gets all my points.
> 
> I can't take credit for Victor's "can't explain witchcraft" line, either. That's Adam Rippon's, and it's absolutely true, the man is a treasure.


	3. May 2018: Naples

Sara shook Michele's shoulder when she saw Emil at the curb at Arrivals. A moment later, Emil caught sight of their car and waved.

And as Michele squeezed their car into an open spot, Sara unhooked her seatbelt and jumped out before he could even bring it to a full stop, pulling Emil down for a kiss on the cheek. Like it had been years since they'd last seen each other, instead of the two months it had been. Less if one counted video calls.

Which left Michele to put the car in park and open the trunk.

“Mickey! It's been way too long, man!” Emil wouldn't let him play chauffeur for long, looping an arm around Michele's shoulders and drawing him into a comradely embrace. “You guys didn't have to come pick me up yourselves.”

“What, you think we'd let you waste your money on a taxi?” said Michele, pulling away so he could start loading up the back of the car.

“Yeah, Emil.” Sara patted him on the back. “You're practically family.”

“Well, I wouldn't go that far—” Then Michele got his first good look at Emil since Worlds, and did a double-take. “You're tan. And you have—is that a _man bun_?” He'd never seen one up-close before. He might have gaped.

Emil beamed. “Isn't it extreme? You like it?”

“No, I don't like it!” With his beard even scruffier than Michele remembered, his rumpled v-neck and cropped pants, he looked . . . “You look like a hippy Jesus.”

Emil laughed at that. “I think that's redundant. Anyway, it's just for the summer. I'll cut it off before season starts. Wouldn't want Sara to get caught on anything.”

As if Michele needed further reminders why Emil was _really_ here. To start his and Sara's pairs training in earnest. He was sure they wanted him out of the way for it, too, but as long as they were all in Naples together, Michele intended to keep a close eye on them. It might be the only time he could. Neither Emil nor Sara had given Michele any final word on where they intended to go after this—Milan or Prague, or somewhere else altogether.

As they drove back to the Crispino family home, Emil regaled them with stories of his adventures in Western Australia, where he'd spent the better part of a month hiking and swimming with friends.

Michele had seen the pictures, of places with names like Ningaloo and Nambung, and selfies with some disturbingly cute little animal called a quokka. He'd been glued to Emil's Instagram account, in turns amazed and jealous at the natural beauty Emil had been surrounded by. Jealous, too, bitterly so (even if he would never admit it out loud), that Emil had shared it all with people Michele didn't know.

He knew he was being irrational. Emil was allowed to have a life that didn't include him. It wasn't like Michele really wanted to spend his time hiking in the desert where venomous snakes and spiders were known to live, or swimming in the open ocean with whale sharks. The photos may have been amazing, to say nothing of Emil's accounting of it, but it sounded like the stuff of nightmares.

But if Michele were honest, how many nights had he lain awake after forcing himself to put down the phone, imagining he was camped out under the Milky Way, with Emil beside him pointing out the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere?

Somehow it was easier to long for that when Emil was half a world away. Knowing he was going to be living under the same roof as Michele and Sara and their parents, at least for a little while, was enough to tie Michele's stomach in knots. He could barely speak the whole drive home, grateful that Sara kept Emil talking without any awkward stretches of silence to fill.

Their mother must have seen them coming up the drive (or else was tracking their phones again), as she was already leading a congregation of extended family out the door to greet them.

She _awww_ ed at Emil's “ _Buongiorno_ ,” correcting him with an effusive “ _Buon_ _asera_ _, prego_ ” and a warm hug that, in Michele's opinion, went on much longer than any she'd given him the past several years of his life. She had met Emil before, at a few of Michele and Sara's events, but the time and place hadn't allowed for much more than pleasantries. It was mostly through her children's stories about Emil in the off-season, and from watching him on TV, that their mother had developed a sense of his character. And become his self-ascribed Number One Fan.

“Thank you, Signora Crispino,” Emil started to say when she released him.

But Michele's mother clucked her tongue and would hear none of it. “You're practically family, Emil,” she told him. “As long as you're staying in this house, you may as well call me Mamma.”

Michele bristled. “ _Ma!_ ” That was going a little too far, didn't she think? Even if Emil and Sara _were_ skating partners now, his mother didn't need to act like they were engaged _._

“Marzi, then,” she amended, shooting Michele a reproachful glare. Then right back to that warm, welcoming smile, the instant she turned back to Emil. “I insist,” she went on in English. “My friends all call me Marzi. Signora is much too formal.”

“Alright. Marzi,” Emil said, and had Michele missed something, because when had Emil become so damn charming? Apparently he couldn't feel Michele drilling holes through him with his stare, either. Emil appeared not to have eyes for anyone but Michele's mother, though she was shorter than him by a whole head. “But please, speak to me in Italian as much as possible,” Emil bid her in his own hesitating attempt. “I'm going to need all the practice if I'm going to train in country.”

As if he were just too darned cute to bear, Michele's mother pursed her lips and clapped Emil gently on the cheek. Then shook her head at Michele as if to say, Can you believe this sweet, sweet boy? “How is it Michele has never brought you home to vacation with him before now?” his mother said, as she looped her arm in Emil's and pulled him toward the house. “You _must_ make him show you around the bay while you're here. And do tell us what sort of things you like to eat. I want you to have a true Neapolitan experience. Do you like fish?”

Emil positively glowed from being the center of attention. “I'll like anything you put in front of me, I'm sure!”

Leaving Michele and Sara to unload his luggage from the car.

Sara was giving him The Look from the moment Michele turned his back to the house. Big, smug, lopsided smile on her lips. She was loving this more than she had any right to. Well, more than she had any right to rub in, anyway. “Shut up,” Michele muttered, busying himself with the suitcases.

“I didn't say anything~”

“You didn't have to.”

“Come on.” Sara nudged him—before crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the car and definitely _not_ helping. “You're glad he's here too. Man bun and all. Even if you're too big a stick-in-the-mud to ever admit it.”

“He's not here for me.” And Michele pushed Emil's skates bag into her hands, to remind Sara what Emil _was_ here for as much as to give her something to carry. “He's going to be too busy training with you to have any time for sight-seeing or dinner dates, or whatever it is your twisted mind is envisioning the two of us doing.”

Sara narrowed her eyes. _Not if I have anything to do with it,_ that look vowed. Michele knew it only too well by now. “We'll see.”

“And that man bun is gone the minute I get my hands on it.”

“I dunno, I kind of like it,” Sara said as she started toward the house. Michele couldn't be sure she meant it or if, once again, she was just saying that to annoy him.

His load being the heavier and bulkier of the two, it took Michele a little longer than it did Sara to take the bags upstairs, to the spare bedroom that had been made up in anticipation of Emil's arrival. Emil must have seen Michele struggling with the suitcases as he went by, because he joined Michele in the second-floor hallway, apologizing for forgetting about his own luggage.

“Aren't you supposed to be meeting the rest of the family?” Michele said with a grunt.

“We can catch up at dinner. It might take a few re-introductions before I get everyone's name down anyway.” Emil went for the handle of the heaviest suitcase. “Which room am I in? Gotta be this one, right?” And so saying, he poked his head into the open doorway they were nearest to.

His certainty stirred something unexpected in Michele. “That's mine, actually. Yours is close, though, just the next door down.” Somehow, though Michele hadn't mean it to, it came out like an invitation.

“Really?” Invitation or no, just knowing it was Michele's was enough to make Emil light up with curiosity and go in to the bedroom.

“It's so _blank_ ,” he said, gazing around at the mostly empty walls. “I guess I always pictured you in here surrounded by all your achievements. Or at least one Ferrari or Lambo poster or something.”

“Too much clutter,” Michele told him. And Ferrari poster? How old did Emil take him for? “Our mother likes the medals downstairs, where she can show them off. And anyway, I prefer a blank wall. That way you can project whatever you want onto it.”

“I see. So it's not just an aesthetic, it's about visualization. That's kind of deep, actually.”

“Sara and I shared a room until we were ten or eleven,” Michele said, crossing his arms, while Emil helped himself to a seat on the edge of his bed. “I guess I just never bothered to put anything up after I moved in here.”

It was weird, standing in the doorframe while Emil occupied Michele's old bedroom, his bed. Perfectly comfortable, like he belonged there. Running long fingers absently over the seams in the old quilt.

Or maybe not so absently, as if Emil were hoping something of Michele's history might be recorded in those grooves, just waiting to be read. Memories of Osaka resurfaced, watching those fingers trace, and Michele wondered what had possessed Emil to just make himself at home. If he was trying to send a message to Michele, using the intimacy of the space to try and coax him into bringing up what Emil didn't seem to be brave enough to broach himself.

 _I'm probably reading into it._ More likely, Emil was just that kind of guy. At home anywhere.

“Why?” Michele asked him. “What did you have on your walls growing up?”

Emil grinned mischievously. He leaned back on his hands, looked up at the ceiling—as if hoping to see what a younger Michele had, when he would stare at that ceiling before falling asleep. “My heroes, of course. _Your_ poster was above the headboard, in case you were wondering. Pride of place. Right between Jaromír Jágr and the X-Men.”

Something kicked inside Michele to think that Emil probably looked at that poster and thought of him while he was stretched out in his own bed. But Emil said it with such a nonchalant shrug, he might have meant something completely innocent by it. After all, Emil had never expressed any sexual interest in Jaromír Jágr. “I was really one of your heroes?”

“Well, you and Sara.”

“You know they say you should never meet them.”

“They do say that.”

“Were you disappointed?”

Emil looked back at him then with a befuddled expression, as if Michele had asked him if he was sure it wasn't the Sun that went around the Earth. “How could I be disappointed? It was only after I met you that first time that you became my hero, so I didn't have any expectations to dash.”

“I must have made quite an impression on you.” That with just a mote of sarcasm. Pity Michele couldn't remember when he first met Emil. One day it just seemed like Emil had always been there, following him and Sara around, and Michele couldn't imagine a time when he wasn't. That was the kind of effect Emil had.

The look on his face must have been completely transparent, because Emil said, cocking a brow, “You don't remember, do you?”

But rather than remind Michele, or take offense, he chuckled. “Anyway. It's taken me the better part of a decade, but I'm finally here. In Naples. There's only one thing I want more right now than to go downstairs and have what's bound to be a delicious dinner with your very generous family.”

Just one thing? Michele caught the devilish glint in Emil's eyes, and it was all he could do not to swallow visibly. “And that is?”

* * *

It was a longtime dream of Emil's to visit Pompeii. To stand in the shadow of Vesuvius, that majestic mountain where Spartacus and his rebels had made their last stand, and marvel at the preserved frescoed walls and mosaic floors of the villas of Pompeii's elites. To feel like he had stepped back in time two thousand years.

The day was hot, and they took their time visiting all the points of interest that Emil had read about or seen on television. Sara and Michele had taken enough school field trips to the site over the years to confidently show Emil around, from the more well-known attractions to some hidden gems he had no idea existed.

There were the baths with their famous frescoes of sexual positions. Julia Felix's, a family villa turned into a bed-and-breakfast and health spa. An ancient Roman diner whose setup of bars and booths didn't seem so different from some of today's cafes. And, of course, no tour would be complete without the communal toilets—a long stone bench with evenly spaced holes—which Emil somehow managed to convince Michele to pose with him and Sara for a group photo on, despite Mickey's protest that it was crass.

Emil found it all fascinating. Ancient temples and forums and mausoleums may be impressive in their grandeur, but they didn't really give one a sense of how people in that time had _lived._ In Pompeii, the signs of daily life were everywhere. In the wheel ruts worn into the roads, the jars of garum and vinegar still preserving their contents millennia later. The graffiti left on the walls by children, which looked no different from the way children drew today.

Of course, the site gave visitors a sense of how residents had died, too. Inside the city's circus was an exhibit of the plaster molds of Vesuvius's victims. Mostly children and teenagers left behind while others escaped, who probably thought they could hide from the eruption and wait it out. Preserved in their death poses before they were slowly covered in ash and their flesh burned away.

It was a sobering sight. In the quiet of the air-conditioned exhibit, Emil could only begin to imagine what those final hours must have been like. The fear and confusion. The air getting ashier and harder to breathe. But they were just kids. They couldn't all have known what was happening to their town. They must have believed that if they just closed their eyes for a little while, it would all be over when they woke up.

He couldn't see Vesuvius quite the same way when they emerged from the exhibit back into bright daylight. It was still beautiful, still larger than life. Still standing there proud like it was challenging Emil to climb it.

Only now he had a better idea of its danger. He could understand why civilizations all over the world thought of volcanoes as gods not to be taken lightly—forces of nature that really didn't care how important you were, or how piously or wickedly you lived your life. Everything you knew could be taken from you in an instant, no matter what you did to try and hold on to it.

Which just meant that every moment you still drew breath was a moment to be savored, and not taken for granted.

Emil couldn't say whether that was the lesson the site wanted him to take away from it, but it was the one that stuck with him all through the car ride home, even as the three of them talked in high spirits.

They got back to the Crispinos' late-afternoon, with a few hours to spare before dinner. The aunts and uncles and cousins had gone home late the night before, so tonight's supper promised to be a more intimate affair. To pass the time, Emil asked if either of the twins would go on a walk with him through the neighborhood.

But Sara claimed she was too tired from their trip. And also that her folks needed help with the cooking. It seemed to Emil just one of those excuses would have sufficed (though, knowing Mickey, maybe not), but he was grateful to her nonetheless. For saving him the trouble of asking if he could hog a bit of Michele's time all to himself.

The views weren't what they might have been closer to the water, but the neighborhood was beautiful nonetheless. Centuries-old villas tucked in among modern constructions, olive branches and grape vines peeking up over old stone walls, and the clean, white scent of sun-warmed jasmine and locust blossom hanging heavy in the air.

They walked without any sort of aim, sometimes in comfortable silence. Or, when Emil's phone would chime with a notification, he would share with Michele the comments their colleagues had left on his Pompeii photos. Did the reality of Pompeii live up to his dreams, Michele wanted to know. It had, more than Emil could find the words to say. It was the kind of day that defied being pinned down by tags and witty captions.

It was as they were nearing home, the sun finally slipping behind the rooftops, that Michele let out a long breath and said, “Alright, Emil. You win.”

Emil wasn't sure they had been vying for anything, but he wasn't foolish enough to stop Michele when he was in an honest mood.

“I want you to know that I'm fully onboard with you and Sara skating together.” ( _I thought we put this to bed months ago._  But knowing Mickey, nothing was every truly decided.) “But I have some conditions.”

Emil kept his observation that it seemed like Michele was contradicting himself behind a tight smile. “And what would those be?”

“Lose the man bun. It's a professional hazard and you look ridiculous.”

Emil laughed. “It's gone.” He was planning on cutting it anyway. Even though he thought he pulled it off pretty well. “Next?”

“You're not just skating for yourself anymore. You're making a full-time commitment to Sara, here. You need to be able to meet her on her level. Protect her integrity but don't hold her back from her potential. And above all, keep her safe from harm. Your body belongs to her now,” Michele said, poking a finger at the center of Emil's chest. “You need to take care of it so it doesn't fail you when Sara needs you most.”

“Oh, not to worry. I agree one-hundred percent. That's why I've been working on a high-protein meal plan, and focusing more on my core and upper body in my workouts—”

“I'm not talking about that. But,” Michele nodded his approval, “I'm glad to hear it. What I meant was, no more free climbing, no more base jumping, no swimming with sharks—”

“They were _whale_ sharks, Mickey.”

“I don't care what _kind_ of sharks they were _,_ they're still sharks!”

There was a huge difference between the whale sharks Emil had swum with in Australia and what Michele was doubtless imagining, but arguing that they were majestic, peaceful creatures that had absolutely no interest in eating people probably wasn't going to win him any points, so Emil just shrugged and let the matter go.

“And _no more halfpipe._ I'm serious, Emil. You could have landed on your head, broken your neck, and then where would Sara be?”

 _Where would_ _Sara_ _be, huh?_ Maybe his reaction to Emil's win at the Winter Games hadn't been just Mickey being grumpy Mickey after all. “You were really worried about me, weren't you? You weren't just saying those things for the cameras.”

“Of course I was. Did you think I was acting?” Michele said under his breath, suddenly bashful about meeting Emil's eyes. “I know how dangerous that stuff is. All it takes for the worst to happen is one tiny slip, no matter how careful you think you're being, and I don't want that to happen to you. You're the last person I want to see get hurt—aside from Sara, of course,” he was quick to add, remembering himself.

“Of course.” Emil smiled. It wasn't a confession, but it was probably the closest thing to it that he could reasonably hope to get. In a public place, at least, and from a sober Michele. It was enough to fill him with pride, to know it mattered to Michele that he was safe. Even if he seemed to think Emil was much more reckless in the things he did for fun than he actually was.

“And thirdly—”

“How many of these are there?”

“Lastly,” Michele said, giving Emil a stern look, “you're skating for Italy. That's non-negotiable. I'm not going to let you two team up if you're just going to run off to Prague on me in a few months.”

Emil couldn't stop grinning at that if he wanted to. Michele had no idea how easy he'd just made Emil's decision. After months of stressing out over pros and cons of one country over the other and whom he was going to disappoint most. Dreading most of all that he might come all this way just to find it even harder to tear himself away from Michele's side again.

But Emil had to make it sound like giving in was more of a compromise than that, if he hoped to get anything out of this deal in return. “I suppose I could transfer my credits to the University of Milan— _if_ you wouldn't mind taking me on as a roommate to save money. And I promise, I'll keep my feet firmly on the ground. Or ice. For as long as Sara still wants me for her partner, my body will be a temple. I just want one thing from you, Mickey.”

“What's that?” A worried side-eye.

“I want you to learn Czech.”

“Really? That's your _one_ condition?” Michele sounded like he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or expect a catch.

“What?” Emil shrugged. “It's a beautiful language and I'd love to be able to speak it with you. If I have to learn your language, the least you could do is learn mine. It's only fair, don't you think?”

That earned him a small, wry grin. As though Michele knew something Emil didn't. “Alright, I'll _try,_ ” he said, “but I can't promise you it will be any good.”

Just his trying was good enough for Emil. “So? Does this mean we _finally_ have your blessing?”

Michele still frowned at the word, with its unspoken connotations of marriage. Though, in a sense, that was what Emil and Sara had entered into, even if it was a purely professional marriage of their talents, one that existed solely for the ice.

But it wasn't just a marriage of two, Emil thought. Michele was just as entangled in it as he and Sara were, if he stopped to think about it. To say nothing of their coaches. Even if it was only Emil and Sara the judges and the audience saw when the music started, they would never be able to make it there alone.

Something along those lines must have occurred to Michele. He straightened up, and declared to Emil's eyes, with distant Vesuvius as his witness: “You have my blessing. And don't you do anything to make me regret it, Nekola.”

* * *

**June**

“It's official!” the post on their social media accounts read. Along with a head-on photo of Sara and Emil in a spiral, one arm extended toward the camera in invitation.

After months of fan speculation and mysterious posts by Sara and Emil themselves—reaching a fever pitch when it was announced the Czech Figure Skating Association was releasing Emil—the Italian Ice Sports Federation confirmed the news of their partnership, arranging a day for members of the media to visit the rink and gather footage of the pair at practice.

Which primarily consisted of side-by-side footwork and jump passes, as well as some spins and lifts and a bit of choreo from their long program. The Crispinos' coach wanted the media to see Sara and Emil at their most graceful and confident, as if they'd been skating together for years rather than months. Even if Sara did overhear more than one photographer lamenting the lack of throws and twists.

They probably got more than enough reel of Emil joking around to make up for it. Sara wanted to ask him just how many espressos he'd had that morning. Though it was more likely just nerves making him giddy. The fear of saying the wrong thing weighed on Sara all day, so she was grateful to Emil for keeping things light and taking some of the spotlight off of her.

Because one question she received over and over was why she was leaving singles. After winning gold at the World Championships, no less. Was she dissatisfied with her discipline? 

Sara didn't want to delve too deeply into last year's emotional roller coaster, or the added stress of an Olympic season. That was in the past, and she didn't see how it was any of the public's business. It was enough to rehash the rationale that had become so comfortable for her in these past few months, when justifying her decision to peers and family members: that she'd climbed as high as she could in singles, that she wanted to try something new and exciting. Moreover, that she'd found a partner she really, really enjoyed skating with, and she wanted to do it with him competitively rather than just for fun.

Which, naturally, led to the question that seemed to be first and foremost on every reporter's mind: “You two have so much chemistry on the ice—are you partners off it as well?”

Each one tried to make it sound like it was such an original question. So Sara really had to hand it to Emil that each time it was asked, he managed to come up with a different answer. “Our relationship is strictly physical. She's just using me for my body.”

“I didn't want to say anything. But the truth is, off the ice, we can't stand each other.”

“Actually, we're madly in love, but we're taking all our raw sexual tension and using it to fuel our skating.”

“In fact, we _are_ dating each other. I'm using the carbon-fourteen method, and Sara's counting my rings.”

Usually Emil made it quite clear that we was kidding. Though his answer of, “Sorry, I've signed a nondisclosure agreement that prevents me from discussing that. By order of Michele Crispino,” did hit a bit close to home to really be considered a joke. Surely anyone who followed Italian figure skating knew how jealously Michele guarded his sister's honor. More than a few interviewers probably went away disappointed there was no juicy rivalry between him and Emil to report on.

“Emil and I are just very good friends,” Sara usually cut in with. “Anything else you think you see is either just acting or proof of how fond and comfortable with each other we really are. We _hope_ our chemistry comes across in our performance, but behind the scenes, there's nothing romantic going on.”

She looked at Emil as she said so, and was rewarded with a smile she couldn't quite decipher. Their audience, seeing it, would probably be thinking, _Yeah, right. Just good friends. We think the lady doth protest too much._

Emil's hand rubbing circles into her back was less ambiguous: Good answer. Keep going.

“Besides, who wouldn't be having a blast skating with a partner like Emil? You must have noticed his sense of humor. Yes, he's a bit of a goofball, but he's also not afraid of anything. That's exactly the kind of person you want beside you when you're trying to retrain yourself to skate with another person. And depend on another person, knowing they're depending on you. Even if some days it feels like we're having too much fun, not enough hard work . . .” Sara teased.

“But we trust each other completely,” Emil jumped in. “That trust is something we have to earn every day. We might make it look easy out there, but we're both pushing ourselves to our limits because we've got a long way to go to catch up to our peers, and neither one of us wants to let the other one down. Though I'd say even the hard work is fun when you're blessed enough to have a skating buddy as amazing and talented as Sara is.”

Sara leaned her head on his shoulder in thanks. Even if the lines about trust and hard work did smack of her brother's influence.

It always came as a relief when questions turned away from the subject of romance and sexual tension, and to the themes and music they had chosen for their upcoming season.

“Since this is our first season together, we thought we'd choose music that represents our respective home countries. So our short program will be an upbeat Italian number—”

“Very fun and sexy, very high-energy. Everyone's going to love it.”

“—and for the free, to represent our Czech half, we're working on a selection from Dvořák's 'From The New World' symphony. It's about new frontiers and new beginnings, which is what this season will be for the two of us, so we think it's a natural choice.”

In fact, their _coach_ had thought it was a natural choice, but neither Sara nor Emil had felt like overruling him after a few listens through. He was agreeable enough to let them choose the music for their short program, so it was a fair compromise. And it might score them some points internationally for Emil to skate to what was arguably his home country's most recognizable musical export.

“From The New World” sounded like an ambitious choice for a debut season, more than one reporter said.

“It is,” Sara agreed. “But we're ambitious. We think it's the perfect piece of music to show off our strengths, and to tell the world we're serious and we won't stop until we're one of the best. We're not complete novices. This may be our debut season as a pair, but we intend to come out in October with all guns blazing.”

“You say you chose Dvořák to represent the Czech half of your team, but you will both be skating for Italy in the fall. How do you feel, Emil, about the criticism you've received from some of your countrymen who say you've let them down, leaving to compete on behalf of Italy just months after winning a medal for Czech Republic in Pyeongchang?”

Did he think his decision was fair to them? in other words. Did he not think he owed his Czech fans for all their support—and for the fame he had enjoyed since the Winter Games that they had given him?

Sara wanted to fire back at the reporters that they were being too hard on Emil. Even if they were only playing devil's advocate, she wanted to remind them that Emil had earned his accolades himself, through dedication and hard work and his own talent. He had risked a lot to win that medal in freestyle skiing—not least of all serious injury, and his skating career—and he didn't owe anything to anyone, except himself.

But the way Emil sobered at the question made her refrain.

“I'm sure there will always be some people who feel let down or betrayed by my choice,” he said earnestly, “no matter what I say in my own defense. But I hope they'll at least give us a chance to prove ourselves before they close their hearts to us completely.

“To all the people who supported me when I was a singles skater, or a freestyle skier, I would say: I'm still me. Even if I am also a part of this team with Sara. My heart will always be Czech, even when I'm skating for Italy. I want to skate for _all_ my fans— _our_ fans,” he said, smiling at Sara, “whether they're Czech or Italian, or American or Chinese or Russian—no matter where they come from. Sara and I are doing this because we want to share this sport we both love with the world. Together.”

Sara couldn't say she was surprised to hear such an optimistic answer come out of Emil, but it made her proud just to be sitting beside him. She found his hand and squeezed it, holding it against her thigh.

“Besides,” she added, spurred on by Emil's idealism, “we're both young and—who knows—maybe after four years, if we can't cut it in Italy, maybe we'll just have to switch to representing Czech Republic.”

Emil winced. “Really? Ooh, Sara, don't get anyone's hopes up. . . .”

“Speaking of which, Emil will have to become an Italian citizen before the next Winter Games if you two plan to participate and represent Italy as a pair,” one interviewer reminded them. “But you need to complete four years of residency in Italy before you can be naturalized as a citizen. Right now, the Beijing games are a little less than four years away. Do you think you'll have enough time to become eligible to compete? And if not, will we see both of you back in singles in 2022?”

 _That_ , Sara thought, was a very good question. One that, at the moment, no one knew the answer to. 

* * *

**St. Petersburg**

“Which interview did you watch?”

“Um, all of them? I think. Including the outtakes reel. Just so you know, I'm expecting to see Emil's little wiggle dance incorporated into all of your programs now.”

“At least he wasn't skating 'Stammi Vicino' dressed as katsudon,” Sara said with an eye roll, making Mila laugh to recall Victor and Yuuri's new ad for the Hasetsu tourism board. “Honestly, Mila, I've never seen him so nervous.”

“Well, he is speaking for two now. That's a lot of responsibility. Emil and I are the same age, and I would find it pretty daunting if everything I said had to represent a partner as well as myself.”

Mila leaned her arms against the boards and rebalanced the phone. The hiss of Yuri's blades cutting the ice echoed in the rink, but Mila was taking her time getting into practice mode today. First things first.

“All things considered,” she told Sara, “I think you two handled yourselves quite professionally. All those sweet words and looks, and the hand-holding—hell, you almost had _me_ shipping you two.”

Sara made a horrified face at that. “Oh, Mila, not you too! We tried really hard to convince everyone we're just friends and steer the conversation to our skating, but it seemed like everyone had to ask if we were a couple. What, a guy and a girl can't be that close and just be friends? They have to be having sex?”

The way she pursed her lips and puffed out her cheeks, Mila wanted to reach through the phone's screen and squeeze her, Sara just looked so darn cute. Instead, she laughed. “Now I see where Mickey gets his prudishness from. Or is it the other way around—”

“Prude? Me?” Sara scoffed. “Why don't you come down here yourself and I'll show you just how prudish I really am.”

That last bit sounded half like a challenge, half a promise, and very enticing all around. Mila raised a brow, biting her lip before she could catch herself, and utterly unable to wipe the lecherous grin off her face. Damn but the last three months had been long.

“Would you please remind your girlfriend she's on speaker?” Yuri said as he glided over. “Sound carries in here.” He tried to sound disgusted, but Mila wasn't buying the act. She had caught him staring at her and Sara together at functions more than once, when he didn't think they would notice.

“Got that, Sara? Better keep it clean,” Mila said. “There are kiddies present.”

She was sure Yuri was just itching to give her the finger.

“Hi, Yurio!” Sara said as Mila turned the phone to include them both. “How's Otabek?”

If that was Sara's revenge, Mila wanted to pat her on the back. Right on cue, Yuri bristled like a cat that just got rubbed the wrong way, said, “Ask him yourself! How would I know how he is?”

“Oh. I thought I saw somewhere that you two spent half of May at your granddad's fishing cabin,” Sara said, with a not-so-contrite finger pressed to her lips. “Sounds awfully romantic, just the two of you out there in the woods all by your lonesomes. Catching your own food, surviving by your own grit. . . .” More like glamping with lots of canned soup, Mila wanted to correct her, but all three of them already knew the truth. “Or are you going to tell me your Insta got hacked again and all those photos were fake?”

She had Yuri dead to rights there. If Yuri didn't want anyone knowing about everything he did with Otabek, Mila thought, he ought to exercise a little more restraint and not post photos of them together every chance he got. But aside from his photo-posting compulsion, Mila knew he was proud of the friendship that had developed between the two of them. Yuri just didn't like to be reminded how cute it was. Or that anyone paid attention to it.

“It was just one week. Anyway, don't you have, like, death spirals or something to get back to?” Yuri shot back at Sara, looking a bit pinker in the cheeks. “And don't give Baba any funny ideas about following in your and Nekola's footsteps. I don't care if she does have the arm strength of a mountain gorilla.”

“Aw, it almost sounds as though you miss my overhead lifts, Yuri,” Mila said, grinning. “But alas, there's a gold medal in ladies' singles with my name on it just waiting for me in Beijing.”

That earned her a snort. “You really think you'll still be relevant in four years, Baba Yaga?”

“You really think you'll have any teeth left if you keep calling me that?”

“What is this,” Yakov's voice echoed over the rink as he came back in from the phone call he had taken, “a rehearsal of Snark on Ice? What do I even bother wasting my precious time coming in to practice for if everyone's just going to spend it standing around chin-wagging?”

Sara must have heard and figured that was her cue to hang up, because when Mila turned back to her phone, Sara was already gone. They could always pick the conversation up again via text, though, after she and Yuri got to work.

“Jeez,” Yuri muttered under his breath, “what crawled up Yakov's butt—”

“Victor's retiring after the season,” their coach fired back, slapping his fedora against his knee. “That's what crawled up my butt, Plisetsky. And it's for good this time.”

“What?”

The news didn't come as much surprise to Mila. To be honest, she had been expecting Victor to come to the same conclusion either this year or the next. At least, she hadn't thought he would hold on long enough to make it to the Beijing games, when he would be 33.

But looking over at Yuri's face, the news seemed to have shaken him hard. “Victor can't quit,” he said, more to himself than Mila or their coach. “He wouldn't—”

“Well, then, pigs must be flying in Hell, where they just opened an outdoor ice rink,” Yakov said, “because he can and he will after Worlds. Apparently he and Katsuki have big plans and he will not be dissuaded.” And by the grumble under his breath, Mila took it their coach had already tried to dissuade Victor, every way he knew how.

Yuri muttered some excuse under his breath and left the rink. At first, Mila figured he probably had to use the toilet. But when Yuri didn't come back, and she couldn't stop thinking about the _way_ he had left, Mila couldn't ignore the nagging feeling that someone should probably go after him.

“Someone cancel practice without informing me? Where's everyone going?” Yakov barked when she too headed for the boards and slipped guards over her blades.

“Just let me check on him,” Mila begged forgiveness before ducking out to find Yuri.

She caught up with him in the men's restroom. Thankfully there weren't any other occupants to stop her from going in, and the sound of stall doors being slammed in would probably have made anyone thinking about popping in for a quick pee think twice.

“What are you doing in here, Baba?” Yuri snarled when Mila turned the corner. “Forget which sign is yours? I'll give you a hint, it's the one with the skirt.”

Mila just ignored that, though, when she caught sight of tears in the corners of his eyes. “Yuri, are you okay? I know this news about Victor might be hard to hear—”

“I'm not crying, okay?!” he shot back. But the sniffle he couldn't catch in time. It made him sound like he was fifteen again, struggling with the pressure of his first year in senior-level competition. “I'm fine! I don't care what that asshole decides to do with his precious Katsudon. With him gone, it just means there's one less person I have to kick out of the way on my race to the top.”

But the couldn't-care-less face he tried to pull crumbled, and with a growl of frustration, Yuri wrenched on the cold water, splashed a little over his face. Because he couldn't possibly be crying if his whole face was wet.

He must have realized just how ridiculous he was being. “Damn it,” he hissed, bracing the sink. “It's not like I didn't know this day was going to come sooner or later. Just . . . somehow it started to feel like Victor was always going to be here. You know? The first time he retired, I was ecstatic. Because it was my chance to step into the spotlight that he left behind. But now . . .”

“Now you've gotten used to having him around,” Mila picked up where he trailed off. “You've gotten used to everything feeling a certain way—the camaraderie, the rivalry—all of it—and you can't bear to think that soon it's going to be over.”

“I can't even imagine it,” Yuri said quietly. He glanced up at her out of the corner of his eye. “I don't want things to change.”

“Who does, really?”

Mila smiled fondly as she recalled Pyeongchang—not only the memories she had made on the ice, but off it as well. Wandering around the Olympic Village with Sara, posing for pictures with fans and other athletes, and cheering for their respective countrymen in other sports. That was just months ago, but in some ways it felt like years had already passed.

Then Mila had believed her and Sara's best-friends-and-arch-rivals routine would sustain them forever. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say, not that she believed that, but that she so wanted it to be true, Mila had banned herself from thinking that it would ever come to an end. Even when she knew that Sara would soon be starting a new chapter in her career without her.

“But change doesn't have to be a bad thing,” Mila said, as much to reassure herself as Yuri. “Think of it as an opportunity. Not just to be recognized as the best in your country, or your discipline. You're always saying how much you love Japan and can't wait to go back. Well, if Victor's living there with Yuuri, you're practically _obligated_ to go and visit them more often. Maybe even train there part of the year. To keep Katsudon on his toes. Maybe Victor could even choreograph another program for you—something he couldn't very well do if he's concentrating on his own skating.

“What I'm trying to say, Yuri, is that just because the nature of your relationship with Victor is going to be changing, it doesn't mean you won't still be friends. You never know, you two might even grow closer because of this. But one thing's for sure: You need to make the most of this season with Victor, because this last year the two of you are competing against each other is going to be something you'll want to treasure for the rest of your life.”

The videos Sara had posted of her skating with Emil, and the excitement in her conversations with Mila late at night, proved how happy Sara was with this new direction she was taking in her life. She didn't see it as an end, but an evolution. And if Mila truly loved her, didn't she owe it to Sara to support her decision one-hundred percent? After all, if even Mickey could get over his fears and get behind them, what excuse did Mila have?

It must have been quite clear to Yuri about halfway through that she wasn't just talking about him and Victor. “You're thinking about taking time off to go to Italy right now, aren't you?”

“Yes, I am.”

 


	4. July 2018: Milan

Time in Milan seemed to move at a different pace. The days might drag but a month could fly by before you even realized it was gone.

Though Emil occupied what had been Sara's room in the apartment—Sara having moved into her own one-bedroom just a short walk away—there were some days he and Michele hardly saw each other. Work and training schedules kept them both busy, often at different times of the day. On top of which, Emil was taking classes from the university online, and homework and cooking and eating dinner ate up much of what time they did have overlapping at home. The fun nights in that Emil had been envisioning before the move, playing _Destiny of Knights_ campaigns with Michele until late over takeout, were few and far between.

But Emil thrived on the full schedule. That was just the kind of person he was. Even if most nights he was left too exhausted to even dream. Every day he could feel himself getting stronger, moving closer to his goals with Sara.

What was more, his Italian was improving by leaps and bounds. This confirmed by Michele, even if he did grouse about Emil's Milanese accent. Though so far most of Emil's vocabulary had to do with food and drink, exchanging money, the weather, or giving directions—the sort of topics that came up regularly in the coffee bar where he worked mornings.

The _historic_ coffee bar where he worked mornings. Emil made a point to include that when he talked to his friends or his folks back home. There were cafes and restaurants with impressive pedigrees in Prague too, but there was just something about serving espresso in _Italy,_ in _Milan—_ which was practically the birthplace of espresso itself—that made Emil feel proud and grateful that the cafe's owners had decided to entrust him, a foreign college student, with their reputation.

Michele would laugh at him when he said things like that. “You're not as big a gamble as you think,” he told Emil when he stopped in for a pick-me-up, leaning over his cup and the hundred-year-old bar like he was whispering confidential information. “How many customers do you think come in just because they heard some famous figure skater was working here?”

“Are you accusing my employers of capitalizing on my name recognition?” Emil wanted to sound as if he were too humble to believe it, but he couldn't help scanning the cafe to see if anyone was turned his way with a starstruck look on their face. “You think it's working?”

“The two women by the window,” Michele said without turning around, and Emil confirmed, “The one with the straw hat and glasses?”

Michele nodded.

“They're tourists from Japan, I think they said. I doubt they'd come all this way just to see me.” Alright, so they had been rather flirty with Emil when he served them. But at the time he'd thought it was just because he looked good in an apron and tie. “No. You think? How can you be sure they didn't recognize _you_ on the street and follow you in here?”

Michele almost did turn around then. But he managed to catch himself in time and self-consciously gulped down the rest of his espresso. It made Emil want to reach across the bar for his hand, or lean over to whisper next to Michele's ear, just to see if he could tease a little pink to Michele's cheeks too.

But Emil took his job too seriously for that. Not to mention Michele wouldn't easily forgive him for “making a scene”.

“Come by the rink tonight before dinner. Say, fivish? We can all go out to eat afterwards.”

It might not have been as transparent as a brush across the back of the hand, but the abruptness of the invite and the intimate register it had been delivered in did make Michele nearly aspirate his coffee. “Why? What's going on?” Already he expected a trap.

Emil shook his head at him. “Sara and I just want to show you what we've been working on. It feels like you've been avoiding us these last couple weeks. On the ice, anyway.”

“Not avoiding,” Michele said. “There's always a lot to catch up on when I come back to Milan.”

Emil was only buying that about fifty-percent. “And now that it's caught up,” he said patiently, clearing the empty demitasse away, “we figured you'd want a progress report. Seeing as it _is_ your brotherly duty to keep an eye on us, and make sure we don't do anything too reckless. Or was that not part of the gentleman's agreement you made me swear to?”

The last uttered with a lopsided smile that probably succeeded more in being cute than sarcastic. But it did earn Emil that little blush he'd been aiming for, with none of the reprimand, and he took that as a small victory.

* * *

Alright. So maybe Michele _had_ been avoiding them. A little. Making sure he got his time in the rink in early, before Emil finished with his shift. Their coach had mentioned it. Sara had mentioned it. Michele kept expecting her to get fed up with him and call him out on his excuses.

But could she blame him? He could get used to watching her skate with Emil the way Michele had always envisioned Sara skating with him—could admire their grace and athleticism, and the comfort the two clearly felt around each other. He could even get used to seeing Emil touch Sara a thousand times a practice, even if some of the hand positions required for their maneuvers came close, in Michele's estimation, to being _too_ personal.

However.

It didn't matter how many times Michele saw it, he didn't think he would ever get used to watching Emil throw his little sister across the rink at full speed.

The violent scraping of the ice just before take-off.

That breathless moment of uncertainty after Emil let go and Sara spun through the air, before the loud kiss of her blade on the ice—like an exclamation mark, or a brisk slap to the face—told she had landed safely on her feet again.

Safe.

This time.

But Michele knew dark-colored leggings hid bruises from falls well, and Sara was even more adept by now at hiding the aches and pains that went with them from her brother. Michele saw the cuts and bruises Emil came home with, too, from where Sara had inadvertently kicked him with her blades. He knew those little injuries would become fewer and farther between the more confident Sara and Emil grew in their spatial awareness of one another.

Still, seeing them perform _more_ throw jumps wasn't going to make them any easier for Michele to watch. If anything, his superstitious mind told him the more throws they performed, the greater their chances of suffering a serious accident. And the worst accidents usually happened in practice. So, yeah, maybe he had been avoiding spending time with them in the rink because on some level—even if he knew it was childish—he had convinced himself that if he never actually saw the throws, nothing bad could happen.

“Michele Crispino, would you please unclench your sphincter,” Sara said, sliding to a halt in the center of the rink and placing her hands on her hips. “I can feel your tension all the way over here and we can't afford the distraction.”

Emil glanced between the two of them. “Oh, is this that twin telepathy I've heard about?” It was impossible to tell whether he was being facetious or really believed in the phenomenon.

From his place on the other side of the boards, Michele said, “How am I supposed to feel, Sara, watching him toss you through the air like that, huh? Statistically, you're bound to fall sooner or later, and as your older brother, you know it would kill me to see that happen.”

Sara, however, just shook her head at his hyperbole. “Well, your _expecting_ me to make a mistake isn't doing anything to help my concentration. You know, it's really not as scary as it looks once you know what you're doing.”

“Not as scary for _you_ , maybe, but I have no control over here.”

“She's right, Mickey. The lifts are what you have to worry about. That's where the really bad accidents can happen.”

“ _Not helping_ , Emil.”

Emil reached up with both hands to smooth back the top of his fade, as had become his habit since the man bun's demise—a variation on his old habit of twisting a lock between his fingers when he was embarrassed or anxious or just deep in thought—and it pulled the hem of his T-shirt up a few centimeters. There were muscles under there that Michele was sure weren't that defined this time last year. But the maneuvers required in pairs did work certain sets of muscles hard that were more ancillary in singles.

Michele probably didn't need to be so hard on them. Clearly Emil was keeping his promise and putting everything he had into transforming himself physically into a pairs skater. Still, old habits were hard to kill.

Sara grabbed hold of Emil's upper arm as an idea occurred to her. “Hey. What if you and Mickey—”

“That's not a bad idea actually.”

“Do you think you can . . .?”

“Sure, but do you think he would . . .?”

“Hey!” Michele snapped, “knock it off with the telepathy, you two! That's _my_ thing.” He certainly didn't like the way the two were conspiring about him. “What are you two scheming up now?”

Sara's mischievous smile when she turned back to him didn't ease his worry one bit, either. “Did you bring your skates?”

“Of course.” Michele was a bit put off Sara thought she even needed to ask.

“Well, get 'em on! And then get your ass out on the ice. Emil's going to throw you.”

“ _What?_ ”

“The way I see it,” Sara told him, “the only way you'll stop being so on edge every time we do a throw jump is if you try one for yourself. Put yourself in my place and you'll see you have nothing to worry about.”

Michele wanted to protest that he wasn't in the mood or that he didn't want to put Emil through the extra strain, but both were so insistent that he just give it one go that Michele, finally, outvoted two to one, caved, got his skates on and, after a quick jaunt around the rink to loosen up, sidled up to the two for his first lesson. At least if Michele was going to fall on his ass and embarrass himself, it would only be in front of Sara and his best friend.

“So, what are we starting with? What's the easiest jump for beginners?”

Apparently Sara had already given this some thought. “I don't know if it's the _easiest,_ but with you two being so close to each other in height, I think a loop would be safest. That way you don't have to reach back between Emil's legs with your toe pick, Mickey, and Emil's inner thighs and groin area should make it through unscathed.”

“Thanks for looking out for me, Sara,” Emil said, wincing just imagining the worst.

“Okay, loop it is.” That was one of Michele's stronger jumps anyway. “So what do I—”

But the weight of Emil's hands on his waist cut Michele short. _This is what Sara feels every day,_ Michele thought, that little voice of jealousy that was getting smaller inside him every day giving him a kick in the gut to remind him it was still there.

But more than that was the surprising sense of vulnerability Emil's grip left him with. As if at any moment Emil might surprise Michele and toss him clear across the rink without any warning. Michele knew he wouldn't, of course, just as he knew the reasons men didn't skate together in pairs had just as much to do with physical limitations and aesthetics as society's gender norms. Yet there was an intimacy to the pair skate that made Michele feel like he was breaking some unspoken taboo, in doing this with Emil. In he, Michele, occupying the place of the woman in the pair, the follower waiting to be thrown—not that there was anything passive about Sara's role in these throw jumps.

“It's going to be just like a regular loop jump,” Emil said, voice gentle and soothing at his back, startling Michele back to the present, “but the setup will follow a wider arc than you're used to. I'm going to slingshot you around our center of gravity before I let go. Do you get what I'm saying? So you need to trust my grip and pull everything in the moment you're in the air. And try not to hit me in the face, please.”

 _Just trust you, huh?_ It felt like Emil was asking Michele to put on a blindfold and let himself be guided through a minefield. He might as well have told Michele to use the Force for all that explanation did to ease his concerns. “So, nothing at all like a regular loop.”

Sara sighed. “It might not _sound_ very similar, the way Emil's describing it, but it will feel very familiar and natural once you do it.”

“Here. Like this.” And Emil circled his right arm around Michele's midsection, pulling him back against Emil's hip and inner thigh and around in a revolution.

Michele couldn't help himself. His hands flew to Emil's arm and he locked his legs apart in a knee-jerk attempt to halt the sudden and unfamiliar motion. To say nothing of being yanked back against Emil's groin without any warning whatsoever. Michele could feel the rush of heat to his face and was sure the color showed.

Whether it did nor not, his panicked reaction earned him a laugh from the two. “Except, when we do it for real, you need to check your arms and shoulders,” (“Like this,” Sara said, demonstrating—which wasn't helping Michele's ego any; he knew how to do a loop jump, for Christ's sake) “and bend your knees and cross your legs a little like you would going into a normal loop.”

“But don't overthink it. It's just like you've done a thousand times.”

Michele mimed what he thought they wanted of him, and after a minor adjustment from Sara, Emil pulled him through the setup again.

Only this time—without any verbal warning on his part, but with an unspoken understanding passing between them down through Emil's grip that didn't leave Michele feeling surprised or tricked—Emil heaved Michele up at the end of it and let go. Not sending him very far (it took all Emil's strength just to launch Michele from a standstill), but far enough for Michele to get one full revolution in before he opened up to check his momentum and landed. Shaky in the knees, but on one foot.

“Yes! That's it!” Emil pumped his fists. “I _told_ you you got this.”

“Bravo!” Sara applauded as Michele circled back around to them. “See? That wasn't so bad, was it?”

“It was . . .” Michele shook his head. “Incredible!”

“ _Right?_ ”

“I mean, it was terrifying at first, but . . . Wow. And that . . . that _pull_ in my stomach . . .” When words failed him, Michele tried miming with his hands the way gravity had seemed for just a second to forget him. He didn't know how else to get that exhilarating rush he'd felt inside across.

But Sara understood. “Feels like flying, doesn't it? Now you see why I like doing this so much?”

“If you think that's fun, imagine doing it at speed,” Emil said. “I wasn't able to give you much height on that last one.”

Michele surprised himself how enthusiastically he turned to Emil—like a little kid who'd just been on his first amusement park ride ever—and said, “Can we do that? I mean, as long as you feel up to it—”

“Of course! I wasn't sure _you_ would. Wanna try for a double this time?”

But they had to build up that speed first. They circled the rink side by side, Emil setting the limit. It may not have been as fast as he and Sara went when they were building up their momentum for a triple, but it felt fast enough to Michele. There were more factors for him to consider than when he was setting up a jump by himself. Emil reached for his hand. Butterflies began to stir in Michele's stomach, a moment of panic when he felt he might be dragged along at a speed his feet couldn't keep up with. But he didn't want to stop, knowing what the reward would be.

At last Emil turned backwards, pulling Michele in toward him. One arm circling Michele's waist. The other hand checking his elbow, as if to ask—“Ready?”

“Do it.”

And Michele knew he was a fool to ever doubt Sara because, once again, she was right. It _was_ like flying. For just a few seconds, Michele spun in the air as if weightless. Watching the ice zoom by beneath his skates faster than it ever did when he had to launch himself into a loop jump. And Sara got to experience this rush every day. With Emil, of all people. It was no wonder she had thrown herself into the pairs discipline with hardly a look back.

The feeling couldn't last forever, though, and eventually Michele had to come down and land. He over-rotated a little bit, sank low and wobbled on the knee of his landing leg and swung out of Emil's path in a clumsy arc, but the discomfort and the ungraceful image he must have struck could not have been further from his mind. Michele heard a triumphant whoop echo off the empty stands, and only realized a second later that it had come out of himself.

“See? You're getting the hang of it pretty quick,” Sara said as she skated nearby but out of their path.

“You were right. Other than a matter of timing and distance covered,” _and trust,_ “it isn't all that different from a normal jump.”

“Wait a second, wait a second.” Sara grinned from ear to ear. “Did I just hear my big brother utter the words 'You were right'?”

“Well, naturally,” said Emil as he stretched his arms and loosened up his shoulder joints. “Isn't Sara always right?”

As the two bantered and lightly teased each other like a couple of siblings, the only thing on Michele's mind was that throw loop. He felt intoxicated by the thrill of it—ten feet tall, and giddy as if on his third glass of Prosecco. And he owed it all to Emil. “Think you got one more in you?”

“Just for you, buddy.”

“If you think the loop's fun,” Sara said, “you should try the throw axel.”

“Maybe next time,” Emil shouted back at her, as he and Michele circled the rink again. “Start slow. One new jump per session.”

That sounded like a promise. And Michele couldn't wait. Of course, he couldn't hog Emil's time and energy for himself—after all, Sara was depending on Emil being at his peak—but it was encouraging to think he'd get to experience that rush again, that feeling of being propelled to new heights, by a partner whose steady hands Michele could trust enough to surrender himself to.

Though everyone had their limit. After that third throw, Emil had reached his. He hung his arms out in front of him and breathed heavier. Even if his exhaustion might have been a bit exaggerated for comic effect, the struggle seemed real enough when he fought just to gasp out “No more. Need rest.”

“Should I get you a banana, Emil?” Sara offered.

But Emil just waved her off and laid himself down on his back on the nice, cold ice. He _had_ just finished an intense practice session with Sara, Michele supposed, before doing those last three throws. With a taller and heavier partner than he was used to besides.

“Aw, don't tell me you guys already broke Emil. And I just got here, too~”

At the sound of Mila's voice, Sara's head turned as if at a shot. She sped toward the boards where Mila waited, overnight bag thrown over her shoulder, and practically launched herself on top of them to give Mila a kiss on each cheek.

“Hi, Mila,” Emil waved without lifting his head.

“How was your flight?” Sara asked her.

“Too long and boring, and the whole time I just kept thinking how I couldn't _wait_ to get here. It's a lot warmer here than in St. Petersburg, by the way.”

“Mm—and it gets properly dark at night too.”

Mila said something else in a lower register, doubtless meant for Sara alone, something that earned her a giggle from his sister; and whatever it was, Michele knew he'd better not pry. For his own sanity as well as the women's privacy. He pushed off toward the far end of the rink.

“Did you bring your skates?” Sara asked Mila, now that it occurred to her.

“Of course! Just because I'm on vacation doesn't mean I can afford to get rusty. We should definitely practice together, like old times. But later. Did you get my package?”

“Yep. All your stuff arrived safely and is back at my apartment.”

“Great. 'Cause I got a ride-share waiting outside if you want to get out of here. . . .”

Mila didn't have to ask twice. In fact, Sara had already exited the rink and started on her skates' laces while they were talking.

Michele skated over to Emil's side in the meantime, extending a helping hand down to him, tensing as Emil heaved himself up with a reserve of strength that threatened to pull Michele down with him.

“You ladies leaving already?” Emil said after Michele hoisted him back to his feet. “Because if you don't mind hanging out a little longer, I was thinking we could all go out for some pizza and beers at that Neapolitan-style place that Mickey likes—”

But Sara cut him off. “Thanks for the offer, Emil, but Mila and I are just going to do our own thing tonight.”

“Sorry,” Mila said, more out of courtesy than actual remorse, “but we haven't seen each other in forever and we wouldn't be very good company, we'd just want to catch up. You know how it is.”

Yeah, he did. And she didn't have to say it in such a roundabout way, Michele thought. Just say they wanted their alone time and leave it at that. Neither one of them had admitted to him yet that they were a couple. They would probably say if asked that they didn't want to upset him. But if Michele was upset about anything, it was that Sara didn't trust him enough to tell him she had a girlfriend. She knew he liked Mila. Didn't she?

Well, alright, if he were honest, Michele really didn't want to hear any details about his sister's love life. But he still felt she should have told him. So what if he acted like a jealous fool every time another guy so much as glanced Sara's way. She must have known he only behaved the way he did in order to protect her from other people's bad intentions. Right?

“But you two should definitely go. We'll meet up with you Sunday night at dinner for sure,” Sara said, helping Mila with her bags. “Reservations at eight?”

“Eight it is!” Emil said with a curt wave good-bye.

“Reservations?” Michele asked him.

“Birthday dinner. I thought the four of us could celebrate over a nice expensive meal. My treat.” He shot Michele a conciliatory smile. “It's okay if you forgot. At my age, I don't expect gifts.”

“I didn't forget.” Technically that was true. Michele just hadn't yet figured out what sort of gift Emil would like, and now he realized he had run out of time to make a decision. Maybe he could still sneak out and get a cake in the morning. “It's just weird that you had to make reservations for _your_ birthday dinner. I feel like that's something Sara and I should have done for you.”

Emil shrugged. “I've been wanting to try this place for a while. I go by it on the way to work and it always smells amazing. In the meantime, though, what do you think? Could you do pizza?”

He looked so eager—but Emil always looked eager; that was part of his charm—Michele couldn't help but laugh. “Sure. But in a bit? Now that you got me on the ice, I wouldn't mind getting a little practice in. You . . . you could join me. If you want.”

Michele hoped he would say yes. After those throws, he was beginning to see how Sara could be so gung-ho for skating as a pair. It was a whole different feeling to have someone else beside you—challenging, thinking of whose blades were where at all times, but reassuring too. Knowing that other person had your back, and would steady you if you started to fall. Michele hadn't known that feeling since he was thirteen, and he and Sara had spent a season ice dancing together.

Skating in hold with Emil had felt nice, and all too brief. With no one else around to see, Michele would not have minded in the least if they continued that. He hadn't felt so close to Emil since Pyeongchang—and that felt like years ago, rather than the months it had been.

But Emil shook his head. “Wish I could, believe me, but I'm completely worn out after those throws.”

“I thought you've been lifting weights.”

“I have! But Sara's considerably lighter than you.”

“I should hope so!”

They shared a smile, neither quite knowing what to say next. Michele's thoughts kept returning to the elation of those throws, and the solidness of Emil's arm around his waist. Then he caught himself, wondering if Emil could tell what he was thinking just by looking in his eyes.

Impossible to tell. “Well, don't let me stop you,” Emil said. “Take all the time you want. But _I'm_ going to go get out of these skates.”

* * *

In the ride-share on the way to her apartment, Sara's hand found Mila's on the seat between them. Her first two fingers slipped into the hollow between Mila's index and thumb, tracing a secret message onto Mila's palm.

What Sara really wanted to do, what she'd been aching to do for three and a half long months, was to pull Mila to her and kiss her until they were both too tired to move. But neither one of them felt much like giving their driver a show.

“I missed you,” Mila said in Russian. Also for the benefit (or lack thereof) of their driver.

It seemed like the understatement of the year. “Same.” Sara's Russian was a little halting, peppered with English words to fill in the vocabulary she still didn't know. “What do you want to do when we get home? Have you eaten?”

“I could help you throw something together. I am feeling a bit peckish.” Which, in Mila-nese, typically meant she was hungry enough to help Sara finish off whatever leftovers were in her fridge, plus half a pint of ice cream. “They didn't give us much on the plane.”

“Maybe a glass of wine?”

“Mm. They didn't give me one of those either.”

“We could put on a movie.” They could cuddle up on the couch . . . but would probably just spend all night talking anyway, so why bother making themselves more noise to talk over?

“You know what I could really use after that flight,” said Mila in a low, knowing voice that went right to Sara's core, “is a bath. I bet after your practice, you could probably go for one too.”

First thing after dinner, Sara thought. But she knew the two of them. Neither of them liked to wait. One or the other would be rushing to fill the tub the moment they walked in the door. They might have to skip the formal dinner and scrounge, if they remembered to eat at all, but it was OK if they didn't. Sara wasn't _that_ hungry. Not for food, anyway.

* * *

In a way, Emil was grateful to Michele for wearing him out. He had a perfect excuse to start cooling down—which meant he had a perfect excuse for watching Michele skate. Something Emil never tired of doing.

Though their skating styles were as different as their taste in music, Michele had always represented an ideal to Emil. One Emil had imitated at first, out of admiration, before accepting a few years in that it didn't really suit him.

Michele was more honest on the ice than off. Expressive and sentimental, proud but not ashamed to show vulnerability. Masculine, but also lyrical. As if he were composing a letter with his blades, Michele always skated _for_ someone. Or _to_ someone, inviting them into his heart. Sara usually, but it may as well have been anyone who happened to be his audience.

And in doing so, he always gave away a little of what he was thinking. Whether he meant to or not. Emil couldn't help adoring him for it. It was that quality that made Michele's skating, to him, perfect.

And heart-wrenching. Emil could still hear Michele's music choice from last year's long program as he watched. That was how evocatively Michele skated when he lost himself to the music of blades kissing ice, even in practice. “ _And people will always make a lover feel a fool,_ ” the lyrics resurfaced in Emil's mind to taunt him, _“But you knew I loved you/ We could have shown them all. . . .”_

_We should have seen love through._

Tonight, like that night last November, in Osaka, Michele seemed to just float across the ice, as if he were skating on Mars or some other world with less gravity than here. Emil had to wonder if it was the thrill of being thrown, if Michele still felt giddy in his stomach the way Emil did as the thrower. Michele still had the energy for a combination jump, a triple toe followed by two loops, and Emil couldn't help but be impressed by his stamina. He whistled.

Prompting Michele to glide to a stop. And glare back at Emil, who was leaning his elbows on the boards (probably with a moonstruck look on his face). “Are you just going to watch?”

“It's all I can do right now. I'm spent. You wore me out. Besides, I already put my shoes on.”

Michele had a quiet snort for that. As if to say, _You'd let that stop you?_

He skated away again, calling over his shoulder: “I think the last time we were on the same ice together was at Worlds, when our group was warming up for the short.”

Emil remembered. They had both been in the second group to last. But after their respective skates, Michele had moved up the rankings and into the last group for the free. While Emil hadn't.

But during that warm-up, that was all still undecided. Anything could happen. “We nearly collided,” as Emil recalled it, “and you put your hand on my arm to say sorry. It was the exact some place Sara put her hand when we were practicing our lift for the exhibition.”

“ _Secretly_ practicing.”

 _Yeah, we were going behind your back. You're not really going to hold it against me_ now, _are you?_ “We'd been running through it a lot, any free moment we could get. I nearly lifted you just out of force of habit. In front of all those people. And the judges.”

Michele looked to be setting himself up for another jump when Emil said that, but he thought better of it and skated back over to the boards instead. Only up close did Emil notice the sweat on his brow and the deep rise and fall of his chest. Another thing Emil envied was how Michele managed never to look winded after a skate, no matter how he felt on the inside.

“I'm glad you caught yourself in time. I probably would have knocked us both over out of sheer panic if you'd tried to lift me over your head.”

Emil laughed imagining it.

“Anyway.” Michele wiped the sweat out of one eye with his T-shirt. “It was too long ago. That's all I was really trying to say. Now that we're living together, there's really no excuse for us not to skate together.”

Never mind that if anyone had been making excuses before now, it was Michele. “I agree absolutely, but I'll have to give you a raincheck tonight. You know I'm good for it.” Then, since they seemed to be in a reminiscent mood, Emil asked him, “You think you'll miss it? Those warm-ups before an event? The rivalry, all that one-up-man-ship? It's my fault we're no longer competitors.”

But Michele shook his head. “We're teammates. And that's better, as far as I'm concerned.”

“I can't tell you how happy I am to hear that.” _Teammates._ The newness of that still hadn't worn off for Emil. To think that he'd be wearing the same Team Italia jacket as Michele in the autumn. . . . Sometimes it was hard to believe this was his new reality, it just seemed too good to be true. Like any day now Emil was going to wake up from this dream. “I wasn't entirely sure you were the teamwork type.”

“Oh really?”

“Well, unless that team consisted of you and Sara. . . .” By the look on Michele's face, he wasn't even going to try and deny it. “But you let me into your circle, and I'm eternally grateful for that.”

“Well, as it turns out,” Michele said, shooting him a bashful smile before pushing off toward the gate, “I didn't have anything to worry about after all. You're like another brother to me, Emil.”

“What if I don't want to be your brother?” Emil said, but quietly enough that he didn't think Michele heard him.

He supposed he ought to take it as progress that Michele no longer saw him as part of the omnipresent male threat, even with Emil's hands on Sara a thousand times a day in practice. _But a truce isn't good enough anymore. After what happened last November . . ._

_It's been long enough. I have to know._

“Mickey, what am I to you exactly?”

Michele looked up from undoing his skates with a sort of startled expression on his face. In Michele's defense, he wasn't privy to Emil's train of thought, so that question probably had seemed to come like a bolt out of the blue. “What are you talking about?”

“You say you don't see me as a rival anymore, that we're teammates, that we're like brothers. But what if I don't want to be your brother? Or even just a comrade or a friend? What if I want to be . . .” Old, comfortable self-doubt threatened to still his tongue, but Emil shrugged it away. “I don't know. Something encompassing all those things, but . . . more. We never actually talked about what happened in Osaka.”

There. The word was out, and now that it was, surely Michele would have too much honor not to answer.

But he just turned back to his skates without a word. Don't read too much into it, Emil told himself. It's just a fight-or-flight type of response.

“What about Osaka?” Michele said after a while. In other words, _Do we really need to talk about it?_ Cagey. Short. Just like he'd been on the phone the morning after.

But Emil couldn't let that deter him. Not anymore.

“I was hoping you'd tell me what I was supposed to make of it,” he said cautiously. “We were supposed to talk about it the next day, only we never did. We both just went on acting like nothing had happened.

“And that was fine—for a while. I could reassure myself that at least nothing had changed between us. Except that it had, Mickey. _Everything_ changed that night. And I can't keep pretending it didn't. So be straight with me. Please. I have to know. Was it a one-time thing? Something you'd only allow yourself to do if you were wasted and not thinking straight? Or . . .”

Emil hesitated to say it. As if—what—if he said what he hoped it might be, then it couldn't possibly come true?

But the time to keep it inside was past. “Or,” Emil tried again, “was it something you _meant_ to do, something you _wanted_ to do? With _me_? I guess what I'm asking is . . . Was it real? Or were you just kissing a fool?”

On that, however, Michele was of no help. For the longest time, he could only stare back, blinking.

_Say something, damn it. Put me out of my misery._

_Please._

“I had way too much to drink that night—”

“So it was a mistake.” Just as Emil feared. His heart felt like it was collapsing into itself. “That's what you're saying.”

“No! I mean, objectively, yes. But I didn't—I genuinely wanted to, it's just—”

Michele huffed, dissatisfied with himself. Started again. “I shouldn't have taken advantage of you like that, Emil. I was supposed to be the older, responsible one, and—you're right, I wasn't thinking straight. I just took what I wanted and—no. There's no excuse for the way I treated you. I betrayed your trust in me, and for that I'm truly sorry.”

Emil could have laughed. He _did_ laugh. That's what Michele was so worried about, all this time? That he had _hurt_ Emil?

“ _That's_ why you never said anything about it?” Emil said, not bothering to stifle his grin. “Mickey. I'd been waiting for you to take advantage of me for a year!”

Of course, once Emil listened to himself, he realized how bad that sounded. “You know what I mean. I'd been crushing on you massively ever since we met at Rostelecom two seasons ago. At very least since Hasetsu last summer. You didn't do anything to me that night that I didn't want you to.”

“Christ, Emil. . . .” With a heavy sigh, as if all that time and all his worries had caught up with him at once, Michele gave up on his second skate and let his arms hang over his knees. “Why didn't you just tell me how you felt?”

“Gee, let me think.” Emil knelt, and rested Michele's other foot between his thighs, started tugging at the laces himself. “Could it be because you were so concerned I was trying to wedge myself between you and Sara, I didn't think you'd actually listen if I tried to tell you _why_ I wasn't interested in her? I was an eighteen-year-old kid, I wasn't sure anything I said to a guy as cool as you would make any difference. And then, after that weekend we spent in Barcelona together, I realized I didn't want to risk losing our friendship. That mattered to me more than anything.”

Emil pulled off the skate and started putting them both back into their bag himself. If he waited for Michele to do it, they would be here all night. And Emil was starving.

And, it was easier to say what Emil had to say to Michele's skates than Michele himself. “I guess I didn't want to take the chance that if I told you I wanted something more, I might scare you off. I was willing to be just a friend, if that was what it took to keep me close to you.

“When Osaka happened, I thought maybe I wouldn't _have_ to say it, maybe everything would just work itself out organically. But the way you acted the next day, like you didn't want to even acknowledge what had happened between us, I was too scared to bring it up. Before I knew it I had just . . . let things go on the way they were.”

At that reminder, Michele ran his hands through his hair and groaned. “Aren't we a couple of idiots? Can you ever forgive me?”

“There's nothing to forgive.” At least, nothing Emil hadn't already forgiven Michele for a hundred times over. “I don't have any regrets about that night.”

“Well, I do. All the time the two of us wasted, keeping ourselves at arm's distance from one another when we could have been—”

Michele stood, took the skates bag from Emil's hand, and put it on the bench beside him. The better to make sure he had Emil's full attention.

“I should have told you honestly how I felt about you a long time ago. But the truth is I wasn't even honest with myself. I was afraid and ashamed and I behaved like a coward, and what happened between us in Osaka was a mistake because it wasn't what you deserved. You deserved a hell of a lot better. At very least, you deserved the truth. Do you . . . do you think the two of us could start over?”

Emil cocked a brow. “ _How_ over?” hoping Michele wouldn't say from the beginning.

“From last November. From the morning after. That's not asking too much, is it?”

“Are you kidding? I'd love that. But you think we could do that over pizza and beers?” Emil tried with a sloppy smile, certain at any moment his stomach was going to chime in and second the proposition loud enough for Michele to hear.

“ _One_ beer,” Michele said. “For me, anyway. I want to be in my right mind for that conversation. And . . . anything that might follow.”

“Anything, huh?” Emil blinked. Did that mean he was expecting something to?

The pervy direction of his thoughts must have been clear on his face, because Michele poked him in the ribs and tried—unsuccessfully—to add in a serious tone of voice, “But we're taking things slow this time, alright?”

“As slow as you like.”

They could go as slow as glaciers as far as Emil was concerned, as long as they were in it together. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know _Destiny of Knights_ is a movie according to YOI, but please indulge my headcanon for a little bit that it's also a novel (or several) and video game. Maybe even has a popular TV series reboot (they never said how recent the film was). . . .
> 
> Many thanks to everyone sticking with me through this! \:D/ Next chapter, we're going back in time to Osaka.


	5. November 2017: Osaka

Michele was going to the Grand Prix Final this year. Period.

Not as a brother of a competitor, not as a spectator or moral support. And not as a goddamned runner-up. He was going because he was going to earn his spot among the top six.

So what if Victor was back this season, or if Katsuki happened to be in his best form ever, making the two all but shoe-ins? That still left four spots. And this year, Michele was certain he had the points to take one of them. He had run the numbers, factored in different scenarios. He couldn't _not_ land one of the spots in the final.

Well, that wasn't exactly true. He could fail to get there if he fell more than a few times or popped any of his jumps. But Michele wasn't worried about that. Not tonight. It may have been early in the season, but he felt strong and full of energy to burn. The Winter Games were coming up in February, and Michele was determined to attend and skate for Italy alongside Sara, just as he had four years ago in Sochi. He could say without a doubt that he was in better shape than he was then, stronger both physically and mentally.

And this free skate was one he believed in. He had been skating to “Kissing A Fool” for years, even if only through his earbuds during practice. Back when the lyrics had made him think of Sara, though Michele could never bring himself to say that to her.

“ _You are far/ When I could have been your star/ You listened to people/ Who scared you to death and from my heart . . ._ ”

It wasn't a romantic song to him in those days. He really did see Sara as his star and hoped she felt the same way about him. Even the title, Michele convinced himself, could just as easily refer to the good-night kisses Sara would press to the top of his head before going to bed. His love for her often left him feeling like some kind of fool.

Back then, love and affection were the purest of emotions to him, forces that arose from the heart or the mind—from the spirit rather than the flesh, and there was nothing wrong with feeling sentimental about a twin sibling who pushed him away the tighter he tried to hold on. “ _So bye-ye-ye-ye~,”_ George Michael would sing/declare/beg, “ _But_ please _don't take my heart~_ ” and it would give a voice to that desperate, adrift feeling Michele couldn't put into words, every time Sara wedged that gap between them open just a little wider.

But something changed last year in Barcelona. Michele couldn't put his finger on any one instant or word or look or touch that did it. All he knew was that afterwards he couldn't listen to this song and hear it the same way again.

Somewhere out in the stands, at that very moment, Emil and Sara were watching him together. Italian flag no doubt clutched tight in their hands as they prayed he completed all his rotations and didn't two-foot any landings.

Did it count as a betrayal, Michele wondered, that he no longer skated this program for Sara? Motivation-wise, he felt like a toddler just learning to walk, taking his first steps away from that sturdy table he had always relied on to pull himself up. Stumbling toward . . . he didn't yet know what. Something that looked enticing, something he wanted more than he ever thought he could, though he had no idea yet whether it could or would even want to support his weight.

Let alone if he could make it there.

“ _You are far/ I'm never gonna be your star/ I'll pick up the pieces/ And mend my heart/ Maybe I'll be strong enough/ I don't know where to start—”_

But he would never know if he didn't try. If he never took that first step into the great unknown. That first exhilarating, terrifying step. . . .

It had always been so easy for Michele to express himself on his skates. As natural as walking, while words only made everything more complicated and often failed to convey what he meant them to. But the way George Michael could sing a lyric, as if he were rendering the words directly into a state of feeling, exposing the raw and pure heart of the music—that was how Michele used his footwork and the lines of his arms, channeling every bit of meaning he could into his body language as the song ramped up toward its climax:

“ _But remember this/ Every other kiss/ That you'll ever give/ Long as we both live/ When you need the hand/ Of another man/ One you_ really _can surrender with—”_

Michele knew the moment he landed his triple Lutz clean as could be that the triple loop right after it would be no problem, even this late in the program. Five minutes from now he'd feel the lactic acid burning in his hips and thighs. But for the moment he was a stylus writing this program into the ice, weightless as if guided by some confident hand from above.

 _I will wait for you, like I always do,_ he heard the lyrics in his head just as he had a thousand times, even if the applause of the crowd momentarily drowned them out. There was only one person in the stands Michele desperately wanted to hear those nine little words that he could not say, praying they would catch his meaning from them.

Surely Emil would be among those cheering his combination the loudest, but Michele couldn't pick out his individual voice over the roar.

* * *

Michele's weekend at the NHK Trophy couldn't have gone any better. He landed all the elements of his free skate with positive GOEs—including that 3 Lutz + 3 loop combo that was fast becoming his signature—earning him a personal best. And winning him a gold medal—narrowly—over Yuuri Katsuki's silver. Some commentators were calling it a “skate of a lifetime,” but Emil didn't want to repeat that to Michele. It was the sort of thing they usually said about you when they figured you had just peaked in your career, never mind your season.

Having already completed his first Grand Prix assignment of the year (his next wasn't until Skate America), Emil was in Japan for the weekend just to support Michele and Sara.

And to try and keep Michele from rubbing his victory in too deeply.

Since the GPF two years previous, when Michele had finished fifth just above Yuuri, and last season, when the two had tied for total points but Michele had had to settle for first alternate at the Finals and didn't compete, he had somehow convinced himself that the two of them were fated to be rivals for the rest of their careers. And Michele clung to that belief no matter how Emil tried to disavow him of it.

“I'm pretty sure this rivalry between you and Yuuri is all in _your_ head,” Emil told him on more than one occasion. In fact, the few times they had crossed paths after the final scores came in, Yuuri had been nothing but gracious in congratulating Michele on his win.

Victor, on the other hand—

“It's a Grand Prix tradition!” he insisted at the izakaya the men had gone to celebrate at after their free skates. There might have been a smile on his lips as he said it, but there was vengeance in Victor's eyes, even if Michele was too drunk on his triumph to see it. “First place buys a round of drinks for the losers.”

“Hey!” Yuuri huffed from under Victor's arm. Second place was hardly what he would call losing. Not to mention, Victor hadn't even competed in the event, so technically he hadn't lost anything.

Not that Victor was going to point that out with a free drink on the line. “Isn't that right, Chris?”

“Wait.” Christophe blinked over his sake. “Victor, wouldn't that mean you owe me about seven or eight years' worth—”

“Better appreciate them while you can,” Victor spoke right over him, without missing a beat, “after that fourth-place finish. You're slipping a bit in your sunset years.”

Emil was ninety-percent sure Victor was trying to even the score for Michele edging out Yuuri, and he was determined to take it out of Michele's finances.

But Michele was riding high on his victory (and whatever alcohol he had already consumed), and he wouldn't hear any of Emil's attempts to strike some sort of compromise. “Why not? A round of beers for my brothers on the ice!” Michele called to the restaurant staff, raising his empty glass. “Except Minami. He's not old enough.”

“Neither is Emil!” Minami protested.

But Michele had a ready answer for that, too. “When you're this tall and have this much beard,” he said, grabbing Emil's chin as Exhibit A and giving it a little shake, “no one cares how old you are.”

Which was true. Since letting his beard grow out over last year's Grand Prix season, Emil hadn't been carded once in Japan. Or most other countries he visited, for that matter.

But that was beside the point. “You've probably had enough for the both of us,” Emil started to say, gently shrugging Michele off. But the round of beers arrived shortly after and he was drowned out by shouts of appreciation and “Kampai!”s.

Minami got his revenge in short order, however, when Leo noticed the establishment was set up for karaoke. Whatever Minami said to the owner, he managed to get the system turned on. He set a couple of binders on the bar between the lot of them, and he and Yuuri helped the others look to see if the songs they requested were available.

Emil flipped through on his own when a song list became free. He didn't know too many kanji yet, but he had taught himself enough kana to understand the order they were in and find some Japanese songs he knew. In hindsight, he probably should have been paying better attention to Michele—who had probably polished off another beer while Emil was slowly working on his from the last round, and was leaning far too close to Seung-gil for Emil's liking.

After a few spirited performances, the proprietor asked them in English: “You're figure skaters, right? Do you know 'Theme of King JJ'?”

“Do we know 'Theme of King JJ'!” Victor echoed him, as if surprised the proprietor even thought he needed to ask.

“Why?” Christophe leaned over the bar. “Do you _have_ 'Theme of King JJ'?”

“Oh my god,” a wide-eyed Yuuri said as he landed on the fateful page, “they _do_. It's here!”

“Lemme see that. . . .” Leo grabbed the book, turning it toward himself. He had to see it for himself before he truly believed. “Holy crap! He wasn't kidding, you guys!”

Minami clapped his hand upon the bar, his diminutive body barely containing his excitement, and declared: “THEME OF KING JJ IT IS! Who's with me?!”

It didn't surprise anyone that Leo would follow him up to the little stage that occupied the back corner of the restaurant.

What _did_ come as a surprise to everyone was that when Leo gave a shout-out to Michele for his first-place win, Michele would take that as his cue to join them.

At first Emil wasn't sure what Mickey planned to do—any time karaoke came up, he tended to express his extreme _dis_ interest in it—but when he grabbed Leo's mic and started belting “ _I never give in how high the mountains rise/ Keep looking ahead_ ,” acting out a pretty decent imitation of JJ's mannerisms from his music video, Emil wasn't the only one floored. Christophe whistled. Seung-gil stared. Victor cheered him on in a mix of Japanese and English and what he probably thought was Italian but sounded more like items on a menu, all while trying to hold his phone steady enough to record.

By the time the eight of them stumbled out the door, Victor's upload of the video already had a few thousand likes and was steadily climbing. Leo had JJ on video chat, who had already seen the footage back in Toronto—where it was just after noon yesterday—and considered himself flattered beyond words (though that didn't stop him from finding plenty of words with which to say so). Christophe had an arm around Michele's shoulders and, from what Emil could make out, was coyly asking Michele whether he knew the true meaning of “Kissing A Fool” (too coyly; his innuendo seemed to be going right over Michele's head), while earning himself some truly sour looks from Seung-gil.

So when Victor suggested continuing the party elsewhere, Emil jumped at the chance to say, “You guys go on ahead without us. I'm taking Mickey back to the hotel.”

Even though it was well past his usual bedtime, Michele tried to protest that it wasn't every year that he won gold in a Grand Prix event. Especially over Yuuri Katsuki.

But Emil's excuse that “Sara won't like it if you show up to her event hungover” did convince Michele to see sense right quick.

Besides, Michele would be furious in the morning when he realized how much he had spent on his victory celebrations. Emil didn't want to add to it, if he could help matters. Even if Michele and Victor did go way back, Emil couldn't easily forgive their Russian colleague for taking advantage of that friendship.

Though it seemed Christophe, at least, saw right through Emil when he said, handing Michele over, “He's right, you know. You wouldn't want to disappoint Sara. I hope you realize how lucky you are to have someone like Emil here looking out for you.”

So he said to Michele, but it was Emil's gaze that Christophe pierced with his own.

Jealous? No, Emil thought; that might have been the reason for Seung-gil's glares, but Christophe's stare was more like a knowing wink and a nod between them. A silent "hang in there." Emil just hoped the others were too drunk or busy talking among themselves to catch it.

They parted ways with a wave, and if Emil regretted anything it was that he didn't have Michele's company all to himself on the walk back to the hotel. Minami decided to call it a night too and tagged along. But he was a great conversationalist, easy to get along with, and it wasn't that long a walk to begin with. He even had Michele chuckling at his stories—until they reached Minami's floor.

Then Michele and Emil were truly alone.

For the first time all night they ran out of things to say, and the lopsided smile Mickey shot his way lodged itself firm in Emil's heart. If Michele weren't utterly tanked, Emil might have thought he was being shamelessly flirted with.

But this was Michele Crispino, he reminded himself, that smile to the heart twisting in a little deeper—who only gave any thought to dating when it concerned his sister and unsuitable men, and gave no thought whatsoever to who might be suitable for himself.

“What?” Emil asked him. Just to see.

“Nothing.” Then, in a small voice: “I beat Yuuri Katsuki—”

Emil groaned as the elevator stopped at their floor, and couldn't get out of the car fast enough. “You're an impossible winner, you know that? _Not_ that you didn't deserve gold for that skate, but if you keep this up I'm going to take it away from you as a matter of principle.”

“It's just that he beat me in every event we were both in last season—”

“ _Except_ Rostelecom _._ And didn't you edge him out in every event the year before?” When Michele failed to get his key card to work in the reader—due to inserting it upside-down—Emil did confiscate that and let them in himself.

“Thanks. Okay, except Rostelecom—but even when I beat him, he still shut me out of the Final. I still can't believe we tied. How does that even happen?”

“It's not like you two are fated by the ice sports gods to be arch-nemeses, or anything like that. You just have to accept you're closely matched in the math,” Emil told him. “If you think about it, it's really the scoring system's fault. Not that Yuuri's purposefully trying to one-up you every chance he gets. I mean, he is, but . . . Well, you know what I mean. He's doing it for himself, to push his own limits, not to spite _you._ ”

But Michele shook his head—a bad idea in hindsight—as he sat down on the bed. “Nah. There's more to it than that. Otherwise, how do you explain Hasetsu, hm?”

That was just the thing, though. No one had been able to explain the strange occurrences at Hasetsu's summer festival last July, as everyone seemed to have slightly different recollections of it (though darkness, tentacles, and loincloths did seem to be common themes). And for some reason, Guanghong's phone's camera must have been on the fritz, because the pictures he took of the event were all either corrupted or too blurry to make out.

Contaminated sushi was the conclusion most of them had come to. Though Emil wasn't ruling out aliens from another dimension, even if most of their colleagues rolled their eyes at that theory. But there was one thing they could all agree on.

“I still don't know what I did to deserve it,” Michele said, “or what actually happened, for that matter—but I do know somehow _I_ got the brunt of it. I'm telling you,” he rebutted Emil's snort, “Katsuki might act nice to my face, but I'm convinced deep down he has it out for me. . . . _In_ for me?”

Michele frowned, unsure which to use. This wasn't the first time Emil noticed he started to lose his grasp of English prepositions the more alcohol he consumed.

“We'll just have to agree to disagree on that. Come on. Let's get those shoes off before you sleep in them.”

Michele was too busy massaging his forehead and trying to keep the room from spinning, he didn't offer any resistance to Emil unlacing said shoes and pulling them off, and placing them neatly side-by-side on the floor.

But he must have noticed, because he said in a softer voice, “Thank you, Emil. For coming with me.”

“For being your designated walker?” Emil chuckled. “My pleasure.”

The gravity in Michele's words made him sober, however. “I meant to Japan. You didn't have to go out of your way for me.”

 _Nothing would be “out of my way” where you're concerned_ , Emil wanted to say—and besides, it wasn't _entirely_ for Michele's sake that he'd made the trip—but all he got out was “I wanted to,” before Michele stopped him, his swimming eyes staring straight (as straight as they could, anyway) into Emil's.

“I mean it. No one else would do that for me. Except Sara, of course, but she doesn't count. She's family so she has to. But _you._ You're a true friend, Emil. Maybe the only one I've got. I don't know what I've done to deserve you, but I don't tell you that often enough.”

 _You don't tell me that_ _ ever _ _._

_And you don't know how badly I've wanted to hear it._

But Emil couldn't fool himself that Mickey meant it. Or, if he did, that he would remember anything he said tonight in the morning. “You're just saying that because you're drunk,” Emil chided him. And before Michele could try to deny it: “You are. You know, I had this crazy notion that you'd be more fun if you loosened up a bit, had a few drinks, sang a few songs, but I take it back. It's weird. It just doesn't seem like you.” This inebriated confessional side might have suited Seung-gil, or Victor or Yuuri, but not Michele. “I never thought I'd say it, but I think I actually prefer Grumpy Mickey to this one.”

Michele groaned as he propped himself up, although in hindsight it might have been an attempt at a laugh. “Come on, Emil. You know you love all the Mickeys.”

“Yeah. I do.”

Emil's heart hammered to hear those honest words come out of his own mouth without the least bit of resistance, but it was too late to take them back. _There. Do with that as you will._ Michele probably wasn't going to remember any of this—hell, he might just brush if off as a joke—so what did Emil have to lose, telling the truth now?

If it was a joke, then Michele's sudden silence must have been, too. Same with his lowered stare that Emil could practically feel burning his lips. And when Michele leaned up and kissed him—that might have been the cruelest punchline of all.

Emil didn't move. Afraid if he did, if he kissed back, if he so much as touched Michele, he would scare him off and never feel that gentle pressure again. Yet when Michele started to pull away, Emil feared he'd missed his chance. Too late now to show Michele how he felt, all he could do was hope he might be able to explain, “Mickey—”

But Michele's fingers were carding through his hair, his mouth pressing against Emil's with all the urgency that first kiss had lacked, and what needed explaining? Everything Emil wanted was in that kiss, that touch.

Gladly he let Michele divest him of his jacket, let him pin Emil down against the hotel room bedspread, their legs tangling together, teeth knocking together as they resettled. Michele breathing an automatic _scusi_ against Emil's skin before kissing him again that he probably had no idea he was saying. What did Emil care? _Do anything. Anything you want. Don't apologize for any of it. Just don't take yourself away from me._

He almost whimpered in protest when Michele did pull back—but it was only to pull his sweater over his head, and when his t-shirt got stuck inside of it—fuck it—that too. Are we doing this now? Emil almost asked; but the hands diving warm up under his own shirt were so serious, he couldn't speak for the tremor of excitement that ran up him. Couldn't think of anything else but running his hands over Michele's naked sides and back, over Michele's thighs pulling his slacks taut. All the while drinking him in—and Michele was kissing him thoroughly enough to give Emil a contact buzz.

It might have occurred to Emil that they were moving too fast. Barreling toward something there was no coming back from. Around the time Michele slipped a hand down the front of Emil's jeans, and the jolt that Michele's touch shot through him brought this all into startling clarity. If this really was just a joke, neither one of them was laughing. Emil undid his own fly, pushing his jeans down off his hips, conscious of Michele watching everything he did as if entranced.

Or else terrified. Emil could tell himself he had nothing to hide; Michele had seen him in his birthday suit before. But he hadn't been turned on when they'd been enjoying the hot springs at Yutopia together. Even if he had been, it would not have been so blatant a confession, an invitation, as it was now, here. Emil held his breath, ready at any moment for Michele to back away. Jump off the bed. Kick Emil out of his room. Accuse him of things Michele swore he never had any intention of doing.

Instead of confidently taking Emil in hand, breathing suddenly ragged and jittering against Emil's thigh between his legs as he stroked, as if Michele were stroking himself.

He didn't need to ask for his touch to be returned. The desperate roll of his hips was plea enough. As soon as Emil had freed Michele's cock Michele was rutting into his hand, eyelids fluttering shut and a profanity tripping off his lips as if in long-awaited relief. He leaned down for Emil's mouth again. And when kissing him became too much work, nuzzled into Emil's shoulder. Cleaved to Emil, like he was the one thing keeping Michele afloat rather than the wave trying to drown him.

“I love you,” the words just spilled out of Emil, dragged out of him from deep in his core by every gentle tug of Michele's hand. Qualifying every stroke of his own. Pressed into Michele's hair, in the Czech that the truth inside Emil's heart only knew how to speak: “God, I love you so much. . . . I'd take the blue for you, Mickey. . . .”

Not knowing if Michele could understand him, or his intent, or if he thought Emil was saying something decidedly filthier than he actually was. Not knowing if Michele was listening to him at all. Michele's gasps for breath turned to little whimpers, smothered in the crook of Emil's neck, the closer he came to the edge, his wrist keeping time for the words running circles in Emil's head: _I'd take the blue from the sky for you. You have no idea how much._

* * *

Sara checked her phone for what must have been the tenth time that minute, and when it didn't tell her anything new, she sighed.

Michele never ignored her messages for this long. Neither, for that matter, did Emil, but it was her brother she was worried about.

He was usually the first one up in the morning, the one already waiting in the hotel lobby with a cup of coffee for each of them when Sara came down yawning. Not the other way around. Damn it, they were supposed to get breakfast together, but the tables at the in-house restaurant were starting to fill up and if she waited any longer for Mickey to show it would cut into her already tight schedule. She still wanted to get some practice time in this morning, before the free skate tonight.

Screw it. Sara didn't care if she came off like a nag. She dialed Michele's number on her way back to her room, but gave up when she got his voicemail.

The guys _did_ say they were going out to celebrate last night. It would not have been the first time if Michele had forgotten to charge his phone when he got back to his room and let it run down.

That settled it. If ever there was a time to use the spare key they exchanged with each other at the start of these events, it was an instance like this. Mickey _had_ made a breakfast date with her, and it wasn't like him to break a promise like that. It was Sara's sisterly duty to check up on him, even if it was just to make sure Michele wasn't puking up last night's “celebrating” all by himself. And if he was still sleeping—well, she'd just have to drag him out of bed.

The door swung open freely after Sara scanned the key card. Michele hadn't set the security lock. The blackout drapes were open, filtered morning light pouring into the room, though Sara didn't detect any signs of movement within.

She took a few steps inside—

And clapped her free hand over her mouth to keep from yelping in surprise. Backed out of the room as quickly as she had come, hoping the sound of the door closing didn't wake the room's occupants before she could make herself scarce.

In any case, it looked like Sara was on her own for breakfast. And after seeing far more of Mickey—and Emil, for that matter—than she wanted to, she was no longer in any hurry to face either of them this morning. It was going to take more than another espresso to scrub that image from her mind.

* * *

The buzzing of his phone against the back of his thigh stirred Emil awake.

Followed soon after by an orange beam of morning sunlight hitting him square in the eyes. The initial _What time is it?_ quickly superseded by the warm weight pressed against his side.

Emil looked down and smiled, a different sort of warmth flooding his chest. So strong and deep, he wouldn't have been surprised if Michele could feel it radiating out of him.

Neither one of them had moved much from the position they'd fallen asleep in. Michele had his head pillowed on Emil's chest, holding Emil to him like a life-sized teddy bear. He looked so innocent like that—breathing deep and slow and peaceful, his eyelashes making little moon-shaped shadows against his cheeks—Emil's first thought was that he couldn't believe they'd actually jerked each other off last night, that it wasn't just something he'd wanted so badly he had dreamt it.

His second was that he didn't know how he was going to get up without waking Michele.

Because he knew Mickey. This might have been Michele's idea, he might have been the one who got the ball rolling by heaving it down that hill, but he'd had a few drinks under his belt then. He hadn't been thinking the same way sober Mickey would think when he woke up.

And as good as Emil felt at this moment, he didn't want to be here for that. He didn't want to hear Michele's excuses, his denials. He didn't want to be blamed. And Emil really didn't want to be pushed away so soon after being held so tight.

No, what Emil _wanted_ was to ruffle Michele's hair and kiss him awake. He _wanted_ Michele to pull him back to bed when Emil tried to get up, insisting on a round two before breakfast. But Emil was only fooling himself if he truly believed that would happen. That wasn't who Michele was.

Emil shifted out of Michele's hold, placing a pillow under Michele's head and holding his breath as Michele sighed in his sleep and latched on to it. Emil had never felt more like a man with half his weight on a landmine. He rose slowly, tucking himself back into his pants and pulling them up with only the lightest ruffling of fabric. Then and only then did he reach for his phone, to see what the message that had woken him had to say.

It was Sara. “ _Never mind. See you both when I see you_ ”.

“ _Never mind”?_ Shit. _Now_ he saw the string of messages she had left him—the ones he had slept through—having to do with her inability to get hold of Michele, and had Emil seen or heard from him since last night, she was starting to worry.

But why “never mind”? Dared Emil hope that all Sara meant by that was that she had given up trying to get an answer from her brother?

He glanced back at Michele, whose ass was still hanging half-out of his slacks like two round, half-baked loaves of bread. An endearing image to Emil, the perfect meeting place of naive and sexy, but not how Michele would have wanted anyone to see him.

So Emil picked up the throw blanket they had kicked off the end of the bed, and draped it over Michele. Switched Michele's phone off of silent. Resisted the urge to lean over and kiss his face one last time, despite everything telling him it might actually _be_ the last time.

Emil couldn't afford to think like that. Last night had given him hope, finally, that this wasn't just some wild-goose chase, he wasn't misreading signals. He had to go on believing that last night hadn't been just the product of too much beer and sake and winning, but that it was the start of something real.

Because if it was, Emil could wait as long as he had to for that next kiss.

* * *

Michele's unconscious brain thought it heard the hotel room door clicking shut, and poked him awake.

But his whole body felt pleasantly heavy and warm, so it told his brain to fuck off and promptly went back to sleep. He couldn't say how long for.

When he was awoken again, it was ruder. His phone ringing with a call. Though Michele was sure he had set it to silent the night before, when all those annoying notifications about Victor's post had kept pouring in.

In fact, there were a _lot_ of things Michele was sure of doing, now that they started coming back to him. Flooding his brain until it felt fit to bursting—though, in all fairness, the bursting part was more likely the beer and sake's fault.

He glanced at the phone's face before he answered. Emil. Great. Possibly the last person Michele wanted to talk to right now, if only because he had no fucking clue how to start. Just press the answer button. They were at a point now a groggy “Hey” would suffice.

“Hey. Mickey. Sorry. I woke you, didn't I?” Something about Emil's voice was wrong. He sounded strained. Hesitant.

_Of course he does, idiot. What do you expect, after you threw yourself at him like that? No use pretending you didn't._

Though pretend was exactly what Michele did. “It's okay. Gotta get up sometime.” He rolled his eyes at the clock. He never let himself sleep in this late.

“True. Hey, um, I was wondering.” An attempt to seem nonchalant, but it was about as transparent as weak tea. “Do you want to get some breakfast with me? I think Sara's already eaten without you, and there's this cute Euro-style bakery across the street—”

“Sorry, Emil, I'm just gonna . . . Right now I just really need a shower. I smell like an izakaya.” It sounded like Emil was grasping for an excuse not to see him this morning anyway, and was just hoping Michele would say it for him. Let him down gently. “But don't wait up for me, okay? We'll catch up with each other at the ladies' free. Maybe we can talk then?”

But when Emil hung up, getting out of bed and into the shower proved easier said than done.

The line about smelling like an izakaya wasn't entirely accurate. Michele pressed his face into the comforter, hoping to catch Emil's scent on it, but the not as subtle smell of semen overwhelmed anything else. Whether his or Emil's or both—Michele couldn't even remember.

And the guilt he felt over that was almost strong enough to bring tears to his eyes. Damn it. For his first time, Michele had really made a mess of things.

But at the time, in the moment, everything had felt so good. Emil had felt so good, against his mouth, between his legs, arching up into his hand, and Michele had been denying he wanted Emil like that for so long he hadn't allowed either one of them space to breathe, or a second to slow down. To ask themselves if what they were doing was right, if it was what they'd both want in the morning. Michele had vague recollections of Emil trying to get out of it. At first. _God, what did I force him to do?_ _And I'm supposed to be the responsible one. . . ._

If only he knew what Emil had said to him in Czech. It seemed that if he did, it would tell Michele everything he needed to know about what to make of last night. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the breath of those words on his ear, that language he never thought was so beautiful until now.

Except Michele _did_ have a way of finding out. He opened his phone again, found the translation app he'd installed last year and barely used. Selected Czech to translate from, and tapped the input field.

But after that, all he could do was sit there staring at the blinking cursor, his finger poised over the keyboard.

He had no idea what to type in. Last night, Michele thought he'd never forget those words, their timbre, their syllables, but they were already gone.

* * *

The small practice rink was all but empty at that hour of morning, the ice dancers who had booked the slot before her just finishing up when Sara arrived. When they were gone, she could put her earbuds in and her music on repeat and run through her routine, as many times as necessary to iron out the wrinkles, until her time ran out.

In a typical year, these sessions were some of Sara's most productive. But this season, for some reason even she couldn't explain, she dreaded these quiet times skating alone.

Alone with this depressing song that she'd somehow thought when she had chosen it would cheer her up. As much as she loved Akina Nakamori's voice, and her emotion-filled performance, listening to that sad, desperate song over and over and expecting herself to skate better for it began to feel like self-imposed torture. Like Sara was paddling against the current, going nowhere fast and wondering why she had ever expected a different outcome.

Frustrated after her third re-start, she pulled the earbuds out. They weren't helping anyway.

“I thought I might find you here.”

Emil was standing by the gate when Sara turned her head, his boyish grin looking like it was still one cup of coffee away from fully awake. “Sorry about this morning,” he said.

“Huh?” Sara's heart leaped. Had he been awake when she entered Michele's room after all?

“For Mickey not answering your messages. He must have put his phone on silent after I dropped him off at his room.” (“Dropped him off,” huh? No, he couldn't have noticed Sara sneaking in if he thought that explanation would fly.) “He's probably dealing with a raging headache this morning anyway. I doubt he would have been good breakfast company.”

“Sounds about like my brother,” Sara sighed. When Michele had told her the guys were going out after the free skate, she knew there was a good chance he would overindulge. His usual tendency toward moderation tended to go right out the window when Victor and Chris were involved—or perhaps it was fairer to say Victor and Chris knew just how to apply the peer pressure on her little big brother. “I'm glad he at least had you along to look out for him.”

“Ah, er, yeah.” Suddenly flustered, Emil looked away. “It was no big deal, though. What are friends for, right?”

So he wasn't going to mention what happened between them. That was OK. Sara wasn't sure she really wanted to know. Not now, at least, with her free skate coming up in a few hours, and herself not feeling like she was one-hundred-percent up to it. What she needed right now was a distraction—but thinking about her own brother and Emil in compromising positions was the wrong kind of distraction at even the best of times. She was having a hard enough time facing Emil so soon after catching them together and _not_ thinking about his penis.

Or about how unfair it was, that the two of them had been off enjoying one another until God-knows-when in the morning, while _she_ was left trying to keep her willpower from falling apart at the slightest puff of wind all on her own. What Sara really needed right now . . .

“Will you skate a little follow-the-leader with me?”

Emil didn't ask if Sara thought that was really the best thing for her preparedness at this late stage. That was half the reason she enjoyed sharing the ice with him so much. He didn't nag her with pre-show checklists or worry vicariously over her physical or mental state until she wanted to chuck her water bottle at him.

Emil just smiled and said “I'd love to” without any added pressure or expectation.

They skated like that for a time, side by side across the ice, spotting one another and copying each other's footwork and turns and arm movements as best they were able. Alternating calling out what jumps or spins or other skaters' signature moves they intended to do next—making up a routine on the fly that had no narrative arc to it, no structure, no aim other than a lighthearted challenging of one another's skill and flexibility.

In other words, perfection.

Sara was having so much fun at it, time passed more quickly than she realized and it was Emil who had to call things to a halt. “Mickey would never forgive me if I tired you out before your free,” he said almost as an apology.

And with that, all the stress that Sara had been trying to skate away from came rushing back to her, rushing _over_ her like a wave, swallowing her up inside itself. The change must have shown itself immediately on her face, because Emil's smile dropped and the next instant he had pulled Sara to himself, holding her, just holding her, tight against his body.

“I got you, Sara,” was all he said, in a quiet, patient voice.

And it was everything Sara hadn't known she'd needed. It was just the permission she needed to let go of everything she had been trying so hard these past few weeks to keep bottled up inside.

The tears came. Then the hiccup of a sob when she felt bad for getting Emil's shirt wet. Sara wrapped her arms tight around Emil's waist, as if as long as she didn't let go, he wouldn't see her crying. But she needn't have worried. He wasn't Michele. And seeing Sara in pain wasn't going to send Emil into a panic.

“Do you want to tell me what's wrong?” he said after some time had passed.

Sara could have stayed like that for much longer, just leaning against Emil's solid warmth until every last tear had left her. If she thought it would actually help. “I don't know,” she sniffled as she pulled herself away. Wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “And that's the problem. I don't think I'm depressed or anxious, or anything like that. I can't explain it. I just feel . . .”

 _Like a shipwreck._ No. That was too dramatic. The truth wasn't so straightforward either.

“Like I'm stuck. Like I've hit a wall in the dark and there's no reason for it. I just don't know where to go from here or how to turn the light back on. With my skating, I mean. I thought Mickey and me giving each other more space would make things easier for both of us, that we'd have more freedom to find our own directions, our own reasons to skate, but somehow . . .”

Sara shook her head. How was it that, of the two of them, she was the one who found herself floundering in the ocean?

“I want to keep skating, more than anything, but I just can't seem to find the inspiration that always used to come so easy to me. Then, on top of everything, it's an Olympic year, so the stress is like a thousand times greater than usual, because _everything_ counts. Damn it—”

And here she was, passing that stress on to Emil when he'd never asked for that burden.

Only Sara hadn't felt like she could share this with Michele—not without stressing him out as well and making things worse for both of them. And she didn't dare mention it to Mila. Sara wasn't sure how their relationship would withstand the guilt.

She forced a laugh as she wiped her tears, but wasn't fooling either of them: It still sounded like a sob. “I'm being silly—”

“No.” Emil was quick to shake his head. “You're not. You can tell yourself 'I'll quit when it's no longer fun,' but what happens if it stops being fun before you're ready?”

For a second, Sara could only blink at him. Was he saying that because he felt the same way? No, she found that hard to believe when she watched Emil skate, and the seemingly boundless enthusiasm he had for everything about this sport.

But he seemed to know what she meant better than she could even describe herself. “I'm not ready to quit,” Sara said, more for her own benefit than for his.

“Then don't,” Emil said. “Don't think about what's going to happen next week, or next February. None of that even exists yet. You have tonight to show that ice you still own it. It's not going to shake you off. You won't let it.”

He didn't make it about beating her fellow competitors, or showing the judges or the audience what she could do. Or even overcoming some obstacle within herself—though it felt to Sara like that was her real problem. Emil seemed to know just what she needed to hear to motivate herself, even if only just enough to get through this skate. How could she ever begin to repay him for that?

“Hey, Emil?”

He turned, halfway to the gate. “What's up?”

“You ever . . . give any thought to changing disciplines? Like, teaming up with someone else, skating as a pair?”

Sara had been kicking the idea around for a while, ever since she and Emil had started their “follow the leader” routine in practice. Right now it was just a game, a diversion and a way for them to challenge their abilities to improvise. But that didn't have to be all it was. Maybe she was being selfish, Sara thought, thinking they could take their game and turn it into a serious competitive endeavor. What right did she have to suggest Emil leave singles when he seemed so happy with it?

So it surprised her when he said, “You mean with you? I've thought about it. With Mickey too, but he didn't seem that interested the few times I tried bringing it up. At the very least it would be a fun challenge, and I'm always up for one of those.”

“But would you ever consider doing it for real? In competition?” That was asking a lot more. It was a much bigger commitment. One that would require one or the other to leave their home. And they wouldn't be allowed to get tired of one another. They would be relying on one another in a capacity they never had before—Sara, in particular, would have to place her complete trust in Emil's ability to lift her, throw her, catch her, never let her fall.

 _I got you_ , he had said.

But surely even he had limits.

“How about this?” Emil said when he saw the conflict on Sara's face. “Let's give ourselves until the exhibition gala in Pyeongchang to come up with something together. If it works out, and we're still friends at that point, we can give it a year, see if we have what it takes to go up against the big names. And if _that_ works out . . . Well, then we'll have no choice but to try for Beijing, won't we?”

Just friends or no, Sara could have kissed him, she couldn't have worded the proposition any better.

But seeing as that appeared to be Mickey's job now, she settled for shaking Emil's hand. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Michele's free skate music: ["Kissing A Fool"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMQjFEh2YOg) by George Michael (1988). 
> 
> I would also recommend his _Faith_ and _Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1_ albums to anyone looking for skate music inspiration. Any music headcanons you want to share? For YOI or RL skating or both? Hit me up on Twitter @ExpeWrites.
> 
> Regarding the summer festival in Hasetsu, particularly the "Yuri!!! On Festival" portion of it, I'm not sure how canonical those episodes were intended to be, so I just tried to fold them in a way that doesn't completely jump the shark (or ancient evil squid god, as the case may be).


	6. July 2018: Milan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 20th to Emil! \:D/ Beware of fluffy birthday fluff ahead!

It was a redo of Emil's first night in his home in Naples. Emil in Michele's bed, Michele himself standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb with his morning cup of coffee. Unable or just unwilling to look away.

Only this time, in the apartment they shared. And with Emil under Michele's sheets, wearing nothing else. And Michele didn't feel like an interloper in his own space, but like he'd won a prize he'd believed would always be just beyond his reach. How could he have ever convinced himself he didn't have the right to try for it?

So he figured Emil couldn't blame him too much for admiring the view, when he stirred and looked up at Michele groggily.

“About time you got up, birthday boy.”

Looking mighty proud of himself—though not necessarily for that reason—Emil stretched. “Aww, Mickey . . . were you watching me sleep?”

Michele hid his grin behind his mug of coffee. Mostly. “Just to make sure you were still breathing.”

“Mm-hm.” Emil wasn't buying that for a second.

“You were pretty dead to the world. Didn't even stir when I got up.”

“Yeah, okay. Or you could just admit you can't take your eyes off me.”

He would understand if Michele wouldn't admit it, though. Even after how bold he had been last night, asking for what he wanted, the blushing virgin routine was hard to drop in the light of morning. If they wanted to get technical about it, Michele hadn't been able to claim that title since November. _But it has been_ quite _the weekend. So much for taking things slow._

The bashful smile on Michele's lips warmed Emil to his bones, left him feeling heavy and content, knowing he was the cause of it. And not even the aroma of fresh brewed coffee drifting through the apartment could make him want to move. Not even Michele's urging him to get up, because “I want to take you out for breakfast.”

“On my day off? Can't we just make something here and eat in?” Emil yawned. He tucked a pillow under his chin, the better to stare puppy-dog eyes back at Michele.

“With what?” Michele laughed. “It's grocery day, remember?”

“Fine, fine. But you have to help me up.”

Emil extended his arms expectantly, and Michele acquiesced, albeit with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. “You're going to need both hands,” Emil told him, so Michele put his coffee down on the nightstand and took both Emil's hands in his.

And walked right into his trap.

Emil wasn't nearly as groggy as he pretended to be, because the next thing Michele knew, he was being yanked down and flipped over Emil and back onto the bed.

With Emil pressed against his side, gloriously naked, one arm solid around Michele's waist, and his mouth doing it's darnedest to steal every last remaining molecule of coffee from Michele's lips. And to convince him to stay in bed for another hour, or until Emil felt like getting up—whichever came last. Michele was on to his ways.

“I already showered,” he tried to protest between kisses, halfhearted though it was. “And you stink.”

“Like love?”

Damn Emil, his lopsided grin was impossible to argue with. “Sure,” Michele snorted, “we can call it that.”

“You should have waited for me,” Emil chastised him, voice low, wide-awake. Hungry. “We'll just have to dirty you up again.”

And with his long-boned hand sliding up under Michele's shirt, Michele couldn't honestly say he was _opposed_ to another shower that morning. A long, hot one. He groaned just thinking about Emil kissing him deep and slow and tracing Michele's abdominals the way he was doing now, only slick with soapy water. God, after last night, Michele would let those hands go anywhere. It _was_ Emil's birthday. And they had time to take, if they were going to try anything new. Time and nowhere else to be.

There was just one problem with that. “We're never getting breakfast, are we?”

“Who needs breakfast when I have you?” Emil murmured, kissing his way down Michele's stomach. Already tackling the top button of Michele's fly. “Besides.” That impish grin again. “It's my birthday, and I want to open my present.”

Michele's hand shot to his wrist so fast it startled them both.

“Don't ever speak those words outside this apartment.” But he amended to the question in Emil's gaze, combing a hand through that mess of fallow hair: “I think I would embarrass myself.”

Mercifully, Emil didn't laugh. Just fired off that oh so patient, so forgiving-of-everything smile of his that never failed to hit its mark.

But he did slow down, achingly so, like Michele was a well-taped package and Emil the most obsessively careful unwrapper. At this rate, if Michele didn't come the moment Emil finally touched him, it was going to be a miracle.

* * *

Dinner was a sumptuous affair. Between the tender _cotoletto_ fried to a crisp in butter and the golden saffron-infused risotto, Sara could honestly say she hadn't enjoyed anything so rich and delicious since leaving Naples a month ago.

She was also sure that the four of them had ordered much too much food, in their eagerness to sample everything that had looked good on the menu (though no one had any problem cleaning his or her plate). Since she had been partly to blame for the abundance, it seemed only fair to Sara that she pay the bill. Or at very least split it with Michele.

Emil would hear none of it. “Call it my birthday present to you,” he said, and, “You've done so much for me this past year—giving up your apartment, even! It's the very least I can do,” until, not wanting to argue with him on his special day, Sara had no choice but to relent. She'd find some other way to pay him back.

But it was the way her brother and her skating partner looked at each other over every course, the way they laughed together, leaned in toward each other rather than away at every opportunity, that made Sara feel as though _she_ had received some precious gift.

It was all she could do to wait until she had Michele alone to ask: “I take it you and Emil worked out your issues over the weekend?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Come on. I can tell when something's different about my own twin brother.” Staring into space, suddenly breaking into a smile when no one had said anything funny, floating about like he'd lost five or fifty kilos overnight. . . . Those couldn't be just the after-effects of a few throw loops. “You two were one _gnocco_ away from feeding each other from your own forks.”

Normally, Michele would have denounced a joke like that before Sara could even finish it. Instead, he looked fondly ahead at where Emil and Mila were caught up in some animated conversation, as the four of them strolled down the century-old streets on the lookout for a gelato shop still open.

“We . . . talked. . . .”

“Talked, huh?” That sounded like a euphemism if Sara ever heard one.

The way Michele blushed—furiously—Sara knew her hunch wasn't wrong.

“Oh my God. It finally happened. My little brother, the perennial virgin, finally became a man!”

Michele didn't need to break their linked arms to give Sara a gentle chiding shove. And, for good measure, shush her as if his life depended on it. Not that Sara had said that very loudly to begin with. “I am _not_ discussing my sex life with my sister,” Michele hissed back at her. “And what's this 'little brother' crap? I seem to recall _I_ was born first.”

“By a few minutes! And only because I got tired of you blocking my exit. I had no choice but to kick you out of the womb.”

On the former point, Sara wasn't going to fight him. Some things were meant to remain private. Sara was just thankful Michele had someone who mattered to him the way Mila did her. “I don't need to hear the details. As long as you're happy.”

“I am. More than I ever imagined I could be.” And it seemed to pain Michele to admit it.

On second thought, it wasn't pain that furrowed his brow and put that strange, enchanted look in his eyes—like he was just waiting for someone to come along and pinch him awake.

Michele was in love. And knowing him, he probably didn't even know it. When they exchanged glances, Sara saw herself staring back in Michele's eyes—the same look her reflection in the mirror gave her when she thought about Mila, as if to say, _I know, I can't believe it either. How did we get this lucky?_ What a pair the two of them made—struck through the hearts by a very economical cupid.

“You could have told me about you and Mila, by the way.”

Sara's knee-jerk reaction was to deny having any idea what Michele meant by that accusation. She was so used to hiding the truth from him.

But it was clear the same old excuses wouldn't fly anymore. “Emil blabbed, didn't he?”

“Uh, no~ I may be a perennial virgin but I _was_ able to figure that one out for myself, believe it or not. You didn't exactly make it difficult.”

Sara winced. She shouldn't have mentioned that she'd told Emil before her own brother, in hindsight. “You're not mad, are you?”

“Why would I be?”

 _Oh, I don't know._ Maybe because any time Sara showed the remotest bit of interest in spending time with someone who wasn't him, Michele was there to chase them off with a snarled threat and a scary face?

“I know Mila,” Michele said as if reading her mind (and, who knew, maybe there was some truth to that twin telepathy thing after all). “I trust she wouldn't do anything to hurt you. At least I can rest assured she doesn't have the same intentions toward you a man would.”

Maybe he didn't know Mila as well as he thought, Sara mused but didn't say, because he might not feel that way if he knew her intentions weren't half as pure as he seemed to believe.

“If anything, I guess I'm a little disappointed you didn't think you could trust me enough to tell me you were dating someone. I thought communication was key in pairs.”

“Well, too bad for you, you're not my skating partner. I tell _him_ everything.”

“So I've noticed.”

But rather than the usual bitterness, Michele said so with a warm, knowing smile. _So maybe we need to work on_ our _communication,_ Sara thought. _Can't rely on telepathy to say everything._ And she laid her head on Michele's shoulder as they walked, knowing he wouldn't mind in the least. When Michele pulled his arm out of Sara's grip, it was only so he could drape it around her shoulders and hold her closer.

She'd spent the last few years fighting moments like this, trying to distance herself from Michele. Thinking that if she did, it would make them stronger as individuals, better able to stand on their own two feet. Maybe then, her reasoning went, they would no longer be seen by outsiders as a package deal, each only identified by his or her relationship to the other.

But it was OK to be selfish from time and time, too. Sara couldn't allow herself to forget that. She had been given a rare gift in Michele. And though she was more than happy to lend him out to Emil for a while, she could never, as long as she lived, dream of letting him go.

* * *

They went back to Sara's apartment for a dessert of homemade biscotti and a sherry-like wine called Vin Santo. A dessert which proceeded to go straight to Mila's head. She was already through one biscotto and about to start on the next when Michele finally noticed what she was doing and kindly explained you were supposed to dip the biscotti _in_ the wine. “Sara probably should have mentioned that first thing. I'm sure she wouldn't want you to chip a tooth on her baking.”

Mila glanced down at her glass, now insufficiently full for dipping, and winced. “In that case, I think I'm going to need a refill.”

But Michele had already seen that coming and was able to top her off forthwith.

“Pro tip, just don't dip your biscotti in your coffee,” Emil said as he came over to sit beside her. “Unless it's in the privacy of your own home. Or you like living dangerously.”

“Why's that?”

“Why do you have to say such blasphemous things?” Michele chided him, scrunching his nose in disgust. “I thought I taught you better.”

To which Emil gestured as if to say, _See? I rest my case._

It sounded to Mila as though Emil was settling into Italian life quite comfortably, and she might have said something to the effect if Sara hadn't chosen that moment to emerge from her bedroom. Huge grin on her face and clutching something behind her back.

“I know you said you didn't want any gifts,” she said to Emil, “and maybe this doesn't actually count, but Michele and I wanted to give it to you together.”

And with that preface, she proffered what was clearly a bundle of clothing wrapped simply in a festive foil and ribbon.

Casting a suspicious look Michele's way, Emil set his wine on the coffee table and reverently unwrapped the parcel.

Whether it was what he expected or not was hard to tell, but Mila had never seen Emil so at a loss for words. He started to say something, stopped, shook his head, and it looked for a moment as though he were going to tear up.

When he did speak, it was in an uncharacteristically small voice. “I was wondering why I hadn't received one of these yet.”

In his lap sat an official Team Italia zip-up jacket, the same midnight blue as those Michele and Sara wore, but updated slightly for the new season.

“Sorry we kept it from you,” Michele said, “but we wanted it to be a special occasion when you got it. If a birthday counts as special enough.”

Emil laughed. “You kidding me? I'm never going to forget this moment as long as I live!”

And lest he somehow ruin it by saying anything more, he shot to his feet and pulled Sara to him in a tight, heartfelt hug, the team jacket crushed between them. Michele's thank-you hug, which came next, was even longer. Mila could definitely hear the start of a good cry, stifled in Mickey's shoulder before it had a chance to get going, while Michele held on to Emil, rubbing Emil's back.

And Mila got it. It wasn't just a jacket. It was proof that Emil had made it. He was official. He belonged.

Not just in the Crispino family either (a feat which Mila was envious to admit she had yet to achieve, at least at the same level). He may not have been a citizen, but as far as his sport was concerned, Emil had gained a whole new country to call his own. Mila couldn't say she knew how that felt—she couldn't imagine wanting to compete for any other nation but Russia—but she was sure she couldn't be happier for him.

As if he could pick up on her vibes, Emil turned and embraced Mila as soon as his arms left Michele. She could feel the depth of gratitude in it that the other two must have. “What's this for?” she asked him, her own gift of souvenirs from Russia feeling like such a hollow gesture next to Sara and Mickey's.

“You're here marking this moment with me,” Emil said when he pulled back, “and I'm so grateful for that.

“For all of you,” as he looked to Michele and Sara in turn. “Truly. I can't express how much this means to me, to be here, sharing  _this—_ ” He held the jacket up in front of himself again, as if he _still_ couldn't believe it was there, solid and real, in his own hands. “—with three of my very best friends . . . I couldn't ask for a better birthday, you guys.”

Michele raised his glass in a toast, leading them in a round of “Happy birthday” and "All the luck" in Italian and English, Czech and Russian. “And you're legal in Japan now,” he added for good measure.

Emil laughed. “And I'm legal in Japan. No beard necessary.”

“Well? Aren't you going to try it on?” Sara urged him.

And Emil needed no extra prompting, jumping to his feet and heading for the full-length mirror on Sara's bedroom door. Michele a step-behind, claiming he wanted to make sure the jacket fit the way it was supposed to; but if Mila had heard it right from Sara, it was Michele who had made double- and triple-sure of the sizing.

While the boys preened like a couple of roosters, arguing briefly over who was going to take pictures, Sara sat herself on the sofa arm beside Mila. Laughing at her brother and Emil, with a little happy tear still clinging to the corner of her eye.

Just sitting beside her, Mila could feel the difference between this Sara and last season's. Maybe it was an effect of the Vin Santo, or spending so much time around Emil's contagious positivity, but Sara's tension seemed gone, and with it that indescribable feeling Mila hadn't been able to escape that Sara was keeping something back from her.

Which was a relief. Of all the things Mila had to worry about his upcoming season, at least her best friend didn't need to be one of them.

* * *

From the very first bar, the short program was all about energy and passion, timing and desire.

The song's title was a gauntlet thrown on the ground: “Meglio stasera.” “It had better be tonight.” No alternatives or second chances guaranteed. All or nothing. Make or break. Like the man said, “ _Fa' subito!_ ” _Do it at once!_

Appropriate for a debut season in a new discipline. The success or failure of this program in the coming months would tell him and Sara in no uncertain terms whether this venture of theirs was worth continuing. Or if it would be better after Saitama to cut their losses and return to skating solo.

Emil didn't see how it could fail. The quick samba rhythm and big, brassy sound had a nostalgic, playful feel reminiscent of classic films from the 1960s—a rhythm and staccato refrain of “ _Go, go, go_ ” that refused to let anyone sit still, and a personality that fit him and Sara like a pair of gloves.

For a few hot minutes, Emil and Sara were just two strangers who met in some club, hit it off dancing—instant chemistry, sparks flying, not _entirely_ unfaithful to reality—and now they stood at a crossroads. Would they hesitate, or say _Yes, let's, right away!_ knowing that tomorrow might be too late? Each clearly wanted the other, only Sara played it coy—worming out of Emil's hold time and again. Allowing herself to be reeled in and tossed in the air like a plaything, before nonchalantly skating just out of reach of her “poor Americano” partner who knew but a little of her speech.

Or was it Sara—that “nice Italiana” starting to teach—who was the confident one? Testing Emil's determination and stamina at every turn—certain, at least, of one thing: that she wasn't going to let just _anyone_ take her home.

“ _Show me how in old Milano/ Lovers hold each other oh so tight,_ ” art paralleled life this last whirlwind of a month, the brass section putting a trio of exclamation marks on their lift triple twist. “ _But I warn you, sweet paesana/ That it had better be tonight._ ”

They finished with a tight combination spin and a deep dip that would leave them both staring up at the judges.

For the moment, however, they had only Mickey, Mila, and their own coach to impress.

As they held their final pose, Mila applauded and whistled from her place behind the boards. “I knew you two were really throwing yourselves into the acrobatic stuff—er, no pun intended—but I had no idea how far you'd come.”

“We still have a ways to go, though,” Sara said. “I just hope by the time we get to our first competition, we don't look like a couple of clowns out there.”

“Are you kidding? I'm still trying to figure out how you guys pulled off that exit out of the lift!Emil, you _have_ to let me feel those _guns_.”

Michele was a little more reserved in his reaction. In fact, Emil couldn't tell what his reaction was. Not for the first time, either. His frown and the slight furrow in his brow could mean just about anything.

“You don't like it?” Emil asked him while Mila palpated his arms.

On the contrary. “I love it. I think the audience is going to love it, to say nothing of the judges.”

“But . . .”

The furrow got a little deeper. “Why does there have to be a 'but'?”

“Because you're working on a permanent cleft in between your eyebrows,” Mila told him, pointing at it for good measure.

Embarrassed, Michele folded his arms over his chest. And tried quite obviously to relax his forehead. Without much luck. “Okay. If you want my _honest_ opinion, I think it needs something. Something to make it stand out, so it's a little less . . . formulaic.”

“You really think _our_ skating is formulaic?” Sara asked him. Not so much offended, if Emil had to guess, as surprised that Michele would find it so. “But our chemistry comes through so strong in this program. And all the major elements were timed to hit the high points in the music.”

Their choreographer really did a stellar job there. Sara and Michele had worked with him off and on in years past, in Canada—in fact, Sara and Mila had both met with him last summer while the guys were relaxing in Hasetsu. It was Emil's first experience putting a new program together over video calls, but it had all worked out with a lot less confusion and stress than he had been dreading.

Until now. The Second Opinion.

“That's just it, though,” Michele was saying, as much to himself as to the others. “It looks like you're just trying to get from one required element to the next as quickly as possible.”

“In their defense,” Mila said, “that's exactly what short programs are.”

“You know what I mean. It could be a little less predictable.” Michele smacked his fist down into his other palm as a solution occurred. “What if you put the lift twist in the front of the program and the side-by-side jumps toward the end? You're both veteran singles skaters, you should have no problem pulling out a combination jump after the halfway mark. Whereas I worry about Emil's stamina affecting the height of the twist that late in the performance.”

Sara exchanged glances with Emil, a silent “you game to try it?” “So, we do our jump pass somewhere around ' _Show me how in old Milano_ ' . . .?”

“I was thinking just before that. There's a small build-up in the music, then a nice punctuation mark at the _'Go ahead!'_ _That's_ where the jump combo should be. The music is practically giving you permission—no, it's a _command_ —to go for the time bonus on the element you two are strongest on. Not to mention there's that ' _start to teach'_ lyric just ahead of it.”

“And that's how you two started, isn't it?” Mila said, catching on quick. “With follow-the-leader exercises and stuff?”

“It would make a nice homage to our origin story,” Emil conceded.

Michele nodded. “And if you two _really_ want to set yourselves apart, I think you should make it a triple Lutz-triple loop.”

Mila beat them all in turning to him, aghast. “You can't be serious, Mickey.” And so soon after backing him up, too.

“Sure,” Emil said, “pick the one combination I _can't_ do.” It was _Michele's_ signature, besides. Emil could understand his fondness for it—and the edge it gave him—but sometimes it seemed Michele forgot there was a _reason_ most skaters never tried it in competition.

“What's this 'can't' crap, all of a sudden, Nekola?” And the furrow was back. “It's a triple/triple, not a quad in sight.”

“I mean, I have tried it _._ In practice. And landed on my ass nine times out of ten.”

“You just have to train yourself to resist that instinct to open up the hips on the landing of the Lutz.”

“Yeah. Assuming I even land it straight. Actually,” before Michele could tell him to have better posture on his take-offs (Emil already knew he had to work on his consistency), “assuming _both_ of us land it straight. There's _two_ of us doing this pass, remember. Sara and I both have to hit both jumps, at the same time—”

“So it's a bit extreme. But I thought you liked extreme things.”

“Even I have to be a realist sometimes. And _you_ don't even feel confident enough to go for that loop in the second jump every time. I remember more than one event last season you made it a triple toe.”

That might have been a low blow, but so was taunting Emil about his love of the extreme. He wasn't sure how bitter Michele was about his performance in Pyeongchang. How, after landing his 3 Lutz + 3 loop in the team competition, he had downgraded it to the lesser-scoring combo in the individuals. And in doing so, landed off the podium.

However: “That's beside the point!” Michele insisted. “Listen to the music! The way it _winds_ up—like a spring? It's aesthetically necessary for that second jump to be a loop!”

Thank goodness for Sara, who knew to step in before this debate could get any more heated. “Why don't you show us,” she said to Michele. “Skate it with me. I want to see how you think we have to time this thing, anyway.”

Emil was more than happy to step out of the rink for a few minutes, to stretch and grab a drink of water. Their coach rolled his eyes and shook his head in sympathy with Emil, having known Michele and his perfectionist ways a lot longer. He skipped ahead in the track to about a minute before the time Michele had indicated, giving him and Sara plenty of time to situate themselves on the ice.

And giving Emil more time to watch the Crispinos skate together—something that, perhaps surprisingly for twins, they didn't seem to like to do. It must not have always been that way, though, because they seemed to have an uncanny ability to predict one another's moves even without rehearsing them a dozen times first. No wonder Sara liked improvising with Emil so much. She must have been doing it forever. To say nothing of the impeccable sense of timing and good spatial memory she and Michele had.

“ _Be a nice Italiana,_ ” the crooner begged, _“and start to teach,_ ” and the twins turned into position in unison, skating backwards in preparation for that first jump.

At the “ _Go ahead!_ ” they both took off into the Lutz, landing fairly straight up and down. Then, right off the landing leg, the spring up into the triple loop, with its apparent slackening of momentum that belied its difficulty and what punishment it was on the hips. They both made it look so easy, too.

Emil winced in empathy. But—he hated to admit it this time—Michele had a point. The peculiar motion of the loop went perfectly with the music. Plus, having the side-by-side jumps at that point in the program made it seem as though Sara were teaching Michele to follow her lead.

“I doubled out on the Lutz,” Sara said by way of apology as she circled around, hands on hips, but Michele didn't seem to be concerned by that in the least. She had a good excuse, having already run through the whole number once before with Emil. And Michele felt he had made his point as well as they needed to.

Speaking of points—now Emil saw what this was really all about. Michele clearly wanted them to have every edge they could in their debut season. Surely no other pairs were crazy enough to attempt that combination jump, let alone with the ten percent bonus. And since Emil and Sara pairing together had been a little crazy to begin with, maybe it was just what they needed.

Though Emil still thought they could get by fine with just a little less madness.

“Okay, I see what you mean,” he said. “But that doesn't change the facts. I can practice that combination until I land myself in traction, but it's not gonna help Sara any if I can't deliver when it counts.”

“We'll work something out,” Sara assured him. “Something we _can_ land consistently. Maybe a toe instead of a Lutz. Or even two triple loops?”

Those _were_ considerably more within Emil's wheelhouse. But some days it felt like he was already pushing himself beyond his limits. He knew he would have to expect days like this when he set out to learn pairs skating in one year, but—

No. No complaints. Emil knew when he entangled himself with the Crispinos that he was in two hundred percent. If he wanted to skate with Sara, he had to deal with Michele in all his forms—meddling brother and Serious Skater among them—and couldn't just pick and choose the Mickeys he wanted when he wanted them.

He swore at the start of this—to Michele and himself—that he would grow stronger. And to Sara, that they would push themselves to new heights. Like a tree whose branches had been pruned, Emil would take this criticism the way it was intended, and use it to branch out in ways he hadn't thought possible before.

“Let's run through it as a toe/loop,” Emil said to Sara. Then, with a nod to Michele: “I want to make sure I understand what you're saying about timing the jumps with the music. Then we need to find a place in the front of the program to fold that lift twist back in.”

“Great. I have some ideas about that, too.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sara and Emil's short program music: ["It Had Better Be Tonight (Meglio Stasera)"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKYKOCWfXEs) by Michael Bublé (Henri Mancini, Franco Migliacci, Johnny Mercer, 1963). His is the version I know best so it's the one I head-plot to, but if you have a different version you prefer, do plug that in instead.


End file.
